'The Government have made a U-turn on the promise to reduce class sizes'

Primary school teacher Nicola Higgins: ". . . basically, with that tax increase we're taking a pay cut".
Photograph: Aidan Crawley

MY BUDGET: TEACHER: "WE WERE promised so much and those promises have been broken," said primary school teacher Nicola Higgins yesterday. "I think teachers will be very angry with what's happened. It looks, by all accounts, like the front line of the education service has been slashed."

Ms Higgins was referring to the revelation in the Budget that class sizes are set to increase next year, and that a ceiling of two English-language support teachers per school will be imposed. A number of other education-related cuts were also announced.

The impact for Ms Higgins's school - St Colmcille's Junior School in Knocklyon - is that they will lose a teacher next year. This in turn will push up class sizes for the remaining teachers.

"That's the first time that's happened since the '80s," she pointed out.

"It really is devastating because teachers and parents alike have been campaigning for years for smaller classes, and the Government have made a complete U-turn on the promise to reduce class sizes. It's gone. It's non-existent."

These cuts will make her job much more difficult now. She has to implement new practices, and with a larger class to teach, this will be much harder.

On top of that, funding for resource teachers and for children from the Travelling community has been cut, she added.

"On a really personal note we've put a big effort into funding a new library in our school and that funding has been cut as well, so we'll have to pay for that ourselves," she said.

"We're just going to find ways and means to fund these things."

The income levy announced in the Budget will also make her life more difficult. "Everything's going up, and basically with that tax increase we're taking a pay cut," she said.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times