THE ANNUAL round of teacher conferences this week was dominated by what the various teaching unions term the "funding crisis" in Irish education. For the first time, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin drew jeers and heckles as she sought to defend the Government's record.
Essentially, the Minister's message was that she was doing all she could to boost education spending despite the more difficult economic backdrop. She pointed out how her budget had reached a record €9.3 billion, an 8 per cent increase on last year.
Ms Hanafin has a decent record in education, one that compares favourably with most of her predecessors in Marlborough Street. But Ms Hanafin can scarcely complain about the reception she received from delegates this week. She came to the INTO conference last year and made specific pre-election commitments on class size. These promises were cast aside in the December Budget; recently, schools were instructed by her department not to re-employ some teachers. Ms Hanafin maintains that the Government will still honour its commitments on class size but who now believes this?
In a sense, the class size issue is one symptom of a wider malaise in Irish education. Despite our relative wealth, the Republic has the second largest classes in the EU. Over 100,000 of our primary schoolchildren are in classes of 30-plus pupils. The Government acknowledges this is unacceptable; in 2002, the previous administration promised classes of less than 20 for all under nines, the recognised international benchmark. Six years on, little has been achieved, despite specific commitments in two government programmes and an INTO campaign which drew over 18,000 parents and teachers to public meetings last year.
The core problem remains the lack of funding for education. Ireland comes 27th of 28 OECD states when it comes to education spending relative to overall wealth; the share of GNP spent on education (5.2 per cent) has actually declined in the past decade. In his address to the ASTI conference this week, Prof Tom Collins of NUI Maynooth challenged the State to commit 7 per cent of GNP to fund education. This level of funding would mirror the levels of spending taken for granted in countries like Canada, Finland and the US.
There was little sign this week that Ms Hanafin or her Cabinet colleagues will meet this challenge. Her speeches were littered with references to harsh realities and darkening economic clouds. Yet, the Government continues to roll out that familiar rhetoric about how our education system - our schools and colleges - will be the platform driving the new knowledge economy.
It did not appear that way at this week's teacher conferences as delegates complained of clapped out computers, overcrowded classrooms, dilapidated school buildings and inadequate support services. Ms Hanafin still has an opportunity to make a real difference in Irish education. Instead of taking her cue from the Department of Finance, she should become an advocate for a quantum leap forward in education.