Teachers, students welcome funding increase

REACTION/EDUCATIONAL: Teaching and student groups welcomed the Government's move to increase funding for programmes to improve access to third level education.

The Joint Managerial Body, which represents the management of all voluntary secondary schools, said that uncertainty on the issue was unsettling to students preparing for the Leaving Certificate.

Its general secretary, Mr George O'Callaghan, said many of the projects aimed at the educationally disadvantaged were in danger of being stalled by the severe cutbacks introduced in the last budget.

"Lack of access to third level education from certain socio-economic backgrounds has to be tackled at the level of first and second level schooling," he said.

"However there was no guarantee that the monies recovered from the reintroduction of third level fees would find their way into first and second level schools. Properly resourced targeted programmes are the only means of dealing with the issue."

The president of the Union of Students in Ireland, Mr Colm Jordan, said fees were not the answer to improving access to third level. But while welcoming the funding initiative, he saidmuch of the controversy on fees could have been avoided.

The latest programme "will do much to open the doors to education for thousands who were previously denied the opportunity to improve both themselves and their society by earning a third level qualification".

Mr Finghin Kelly, an activist with the Campaign for Free Education, called on the Government to reverse cutbacks in the allowance for mature students.

"A significant number of mature students, lone parents and the long-term unemployed will be unable to continue in their return to education if the Back to Education Allowance cutbacks are not immediately reversed," he said.