Irish Vocational Education Association

While realising the severe financial constraints on the Department of Education and Skills, the reality is that many schools now have a huge hill to climb in terms of the provision of adequate subject choice - in particular subjects such as physics and chemistry, which we are constantly reminded are the key to future prosperity.

The effect of mainstreaming guidance teachers will have the same effect on schools as a 0.8 increase in the pupil teacher ratio (PTR).

The stark reality is that removing the 'ex-quota' entitlement of schools to guidance staff has the same effect as changing the PTR. However, it has the added down-side of undermining school guidance services which, even as they stand, manifestly need to be upgraded rather than downgraded.

At a time of increasing pressure on families and growing concerns about the mental health of young people, this measure sends a wrong signal about our commitment to providing pastoral support and guidance to students so as to ensure that they make the most of their education and their lives.

The moratorium on filling vacant posts of responsibility, which has reduced the availability of year heads, has resulted in guidance counsellors having to take on more pastoral responsibilities. But now many of these counsellors are likely to be allocated more teaching duties and so will be unavailable to assist vulnerable students.

Reducing subject choice and downgrading guidance increases the possibility of more young people leaving school early, thus threatening social cohesion and increasing the pressure on health, welfare and other budgets down the line. We either invest a little now or we pay a lot later.

The change to the way schools are allocated guidance resources is also concerning because, notwithstanding media stories late last week, it was generally felt, for fairly obvious reasons, that guidance was not an area susceptible to being cut. Now the question is: what next?

The withdrawal of teaching resources from schools will inevitably impact most severely on small schools, and VECs have a high proportion of such schools in rural Ireland.

The 6% reduction, over the course of the next four years, in the capitation grants to schools and capitation payments to further education will further undermine the capacity of schools and centres of education to cater appropriately to the needs of their students. In further education, which caters for many who have already encountered some form or other of disadvantage, the effects of these cuts, which will also hit adult literacy programmes, will be very serious. Schools and centres cannot be made any leaner and this multi-annual withdrawal of resources will simply disable them.
For Youthreach students, the halving of allowances to a standard €40 was totally unexpected. Youthreach is an alternative to mainstream education for those young people that are most at risk and halving their allowance could have a significant negative impact on Youthreach programmes.

The allocation of some €10M to commence the implementation of the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy and work on Junior Cycle reform - developments essential to ensuring both our future national cohesion and national prosperity.
The allocation of €20M to provide some 6,500 training places to the long-term unemployed.
The commitment to allowing for further alleviation measures in relation to the filling of additional assistant principals posts in second level schools, where the pressure on principals and deputy principals has become unbearable.

When added to cuts from previous years, the resourcing and staffing pressures on schools and centres of education will be enormous. The question is: how much can be cut before the whole system begins to disintegrate? The education partners have worked well with successive ministers and the Department of Education and Skills over the years to develop an education system that, despite its acknowledged weaknesses, has served our young people well. Only a few short years ago, it seemed that we were well on the way to creating a world class education system. Now we are putting at risk much of our past achievements.

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© IVEA 2012