EDUCATION SECTOR:RADICAL CUTS of €746 million in the education sector are identified in the McCarthy report, including 6,390 job losses, mergers of smaller rural schools, increased pupil-teacher ratios and significant mergers across third-level colleges.
he proposed cuts have provoked widespread anger, with unions describing them as a recipe for a “social timebomb”.
The report recommends cutting 2,000 special needs teachers and 1,000 language support teachers to deliver €80 million in savings.
It says parents should pay the cost of school transport at €500 per child and calls for a 25 per cent cut in funding to private schools.
Savings of at least €100 million in the cost of substitute teachers should be targeted because the current €300 million cost “arises in large part from a set of restrictive working terms, conditions and practices for teachers”. A further €50 million could be saved in “management allowances”.
The group recommends significant mergers, including a reduction in the number of vocational education committees (VECs) from 33 to 22. It also recommends that the three Dublin-based institutes of technology be merged into one for a €2 million saving; that the new institute move to Tallaght; and that the agency to develop Grangegorman as a site for the institutes be disbanded, saving €1.5 million.
The group believes 2,000 jobs could be cut at third-level over the medium term with savings of €140 million a year, and recommends the re-introduction of third-level fees because 23 per cent of students are from households with incomes above €80,000.
At primary level the group recommends a €5 million cut in teacher training and an increase in the pupil-teacher ratio to 29:1 by 2010 to save €30 million. An increase from 19:1 to 20:1 is proposed at post-primary level.
The National Education Welfare Board, responsible for school attendance, and the National Council for Special Education should be absorbed into the Department of Education.
Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) deputy general secretary Annette Dolan said “the attacks outlined . . . would represent an educational disaster and light a short fuse on a social time bomb”.
General secretary of the INTO John Carr said the “McCarthy report on education will cause devastation in primary schools”. The union said any attempt by Government to implement the proposals would be “firmly resisted by public protest and industrial action . . . Cutbacks on this scale will put Irish primary education back decades.”
Grangegorman Development Agency chief executive Gerry Murphy said the agency will await the outcome of Government consideration “but remain[s] committed to meeting current project deadlines”.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) condemned the call for €70 million in cuts from student support schemes.
The Irish Federation of University Teachers “will arrange immediate contact with our colleague teachers’ unions to discuss proposals for a decisive campaign of action to defeat ‘An Bord Snip’ proposals relating to education, which will come to be regarded as one of the most short-sighted documents in Irish education history”, said general secretary Mike Jennings.
Key cuts
Special needs assistants €60m
Third level student grants €70m
