Pity poor Micheal Martin

Pity poor Micheal Martin. Education spending will rise by 16 per cent next year, bringing total spending to over £3 billion, but Minister Martin's efforts are still not enough to bring a smile to the faces of most of the education partners.

Responding to the education estimates published last week, Billy Fitzpatrick, education officer with the TUI, says the 6 per cent increase in current spending in the second-level sector "will not go any way towards shifting the pupil-teacher ratio. We'll still have the largest classes in Europe and one of the poorest pupil-teacher ratios."

It is a "major concern of the TUI that the Minister has already departed from his targeting strategy. He recently announced that all schools, including private schools with more than 600 pupils, will get an ex-quota remedial teacher while those under 600 will get a half-post on an ex-quota basis." This is for everybody rather than a targeted initiative, he says.

At third level, Fitzpatrick is concerned that "we don't know to what extent access will be improved and what supports, if any, will be available to students."

General secretary of the ASTI Charlie Lennon says: "Overall the increase in expenditure for maintenance of schools is lower than schools might have expected. We expected to see the report of the funding on second-level schools published and its recommendations implemented in the context of the Budget. The estimates give no indication that the necessary improvements in staffing which the ASTI has been seeking will be made."

On a more positive note, he has welcomed the additional capital spending, which will "help to provide schools with modern facilities and eliminate substandard buildings which still house many second-level schools".

Meanwhile, the INTO has expressed disquiet at the modest increases in funding for secretarial staff and caretakers. Senator Joe O'Toole, general secretary of the INTO, also said that the £11-million increase in the capitation grant was a a source of great disappointment to schools and boards of management.

The National Parents Council (Primary) has welcomed the big increase in primary education spending and the monies set aside for childcare assistants for children with special needs. National co-ordinator Fionnuala Kilfeather is also positive about the estimates for school buildings and the focus on the child rather than the school when it comes to disadvantage.

However, she says, "we need to evaluate the difference all of this makes for children. We have all this information on inputs and no information at all on the different these inputs make."

Dr Peadar Cremin, president of Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, welcomed "the indications that the Government intends to increase substantially its expenditure on educational infrastructure. The Government estimates indicate that capital spending on education is to increase by 73 per cent to £413 million."

In particular he pointed to the proposed increase in capital spending, saying this may bring to an end years of neglect. "For a number of decades there has been no capital investment in the colleges of teacher education. They are now the Cinderellas of the sector."

While many of the details of next year's spending have to be worked on a programme-by-programme basis, total spending will be £3.03 billion, compared with £2.61 billion this year.

The primary school sector will get £925 million of this - a 10 per cent increase on this year. Second level and further education will get £1.079 billion, an increase of 11 per cent, while third level and further education will get £795 million, up 15 per cent.