THE ANNUAL round of teacher conferences, which began last night, is set to be dominated by talk of cutbacks and retrenchment. The education sector may have escaped relatively unscathed from last week’s emergency Budget but it has not been spared. The October budget imposed an unprecedented range of cuts, including an increase in class size.
Library supports for many disadvantaged children were cut. Supports for Travellers and foreign nationals were trimmed back. And since that budget, more than 100 classes for special needs children with milder learning needs have been abolished, dozens of teaching posts have been axed and funding for schemes pared back.
Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe can expect a chilly reception from delegates when he addresses the conferences. The revelation this morning that those emerging from teacher training this summer have little prospect of employment will add to the sense of unease.
The Minister is expected to acknowledge the pain that these cuts have imposed across the sector. But he will insist cost-cutting is unavoidable, given the State’s dire economic predicament. Presumably, the Minister will ask delegates to bear the pain, put their own sectional interest to one side and look to the bigger national picture as the State fights for its economic life.
It is not a message which will find a ready echo with many teachers. After almost two decades of unprecedented prosperity, some 50,000 teachers still find themselves working in a hopelessly under-funded education system. Average class sizes are the second largest in the EU. The Republic is close to the bottom of the OECD table which links education spending to average wealth levels. There have been welcome improvements and investment, notably in special needs support and in school building. But there is still a strong sense that the education sector has been asked to make do without the kind of facilities taken for granted elsewhere. The Republic, for example, still lags well behind most OECD states when it comes to the rollout of information and communication technologies; most schools’ science laboratories need fresh investment.
Despite this record of under-investment, the Republic has a much-lauded education service – thanks in large measure to talented teachers and committed parents. In the 1980s the education system was the key driver of economic growth. This week, delegates should remind the Minister that investment in education can again be the platform for economic revival.