Rural schools to take a hammering

MORE than 70 national school teaching posts in Clare will be compromised by changes announced in Budget 2012, it was claimed this week.

In this month’s Budget, the Government announced changes to the way small schools will be staffed over the next three years. Under the Department of Education’s plan, if a school is to retain its two teachers, it will have to have at least 14 pupils next year, 17 in 2013/2014 and at least 20 by 2014/2015. Three-teacher schools will have to have similar rises in pupils to retain its teaching staff, going from 49 to 56 in the next three years, with four-teacher schools facing staff cuts if they can’t increase their enrolment from 81 to 86 over that period.
The department has claimed this cutback will mean the loss of 100 teaching posts in 2012 and the loss of a total of 250 posts over the three years. But this change, combined with a change in the way learning support and resource hours are allocated, could mean more than 70 jobs are compromised in Clare alone, according to a West Clare principal.
Bríd Finnegan, principal of Knockerra National School and local INTO committee member, has accused the Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn, of “laying down a marker” concerning the future of rural schools.
“The biggest thing in this budget is that the minister has laid down a marker, meaning that boards of management will, in two to three years, look around, think about their options and consider amalgamation. Minister Quinn would have no understanding of the meaning of a small school to a community. The people making these decisions are just looking at numbers on a page,” she said.
“I would see the small school as central in the rural community. It is the fulcrum around which the community revolves. To educate a child in a two-teacher school, it costs in the region of hundreds of euros more per pupil but there isn’t any other public money put into these communities. There is no investment in facilities. There are no swimming pools, playgrounds, footpaths or garda stations. So the cost is a small extra per pupil but often it is the only money going into these communities and I don’t think the Government could buy the service a small school gives in terms of community cohesion,” Ms Finnegan continued.
According to Department of Education figures, in Clare there were 62 schools with less than 86 pupils last year. Nine of these, the majority of them in West and North Clare, had less than 20 pupils.
“My biggest bone of contention really is that that the McCarthy Report stated that closing two-teacher schools would mean a saving of €18 million. But there is €110 million paid into private schools, which hasn’t been touched,” Ms Finnegan concluded.