IF the Minister for Education, Ms Breathnach, modified her plan to redeploy teachers it would ensure, that 100 of the 300 schools due to lose a staff member would retain their teacher, according to the Irish National Teachers Organisation general secretary, Senator Joe O'Toole.
Speaking in Galway, Mr O'Toole said this would be possible if Ms Breathnach implemented the changes gradually. Making 100 schools suffer with the largest class sizes in Europe was a grossly unfair basis on which to pay for improvements in 25 disadvantaged schools.
Allowing a margin of just one extra pupil per teacher would save the teacher in many instances, he said. Teachers were heading reluctantly towards a programme of strike action. The Minister had not listened to pleas on behalf of small schools.
In a panic she had conceded that no two teacher school would become a one teacher school, which created a huge anomaly. Many one teacher schools would, have more pupils than some of the two teacher schools the Minister had created, he said.
The 100 schools being balloted for industrial action were the schools that were marginally short of the cut off point. These were the schools that would have the largest sizes and the Minister was being asked to consider them as special cases, Mr O'Toole said.
Saving the 100 teachers would still allow for 200 extra teachers in disadvantaged schools ash recommended by the Combat Poverty Agency report.