ANALYSIS:The Department of Education's decision to publish teacher allocations for next year on its website was a public relations disaster
EARLIER THIS year, as the controversy raged around the budget cutbacks in education, Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe promised to publish details of teacher staff allocations for 2009/10 as they became available in the interests of transparency.
It was a decision he would rue on Thursday. Within hours of initial teacher allocations appearing on the department’s website, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland had fired off a press release warning of 3,500 job losses.
Result: apocalyptic headlines yesterday.
In response, a furious department has accused the TUI of alarmist, mischievous, behaviour. It says the figures for teacher numbers published on the website were misinterpreted.
But, amid the sound and fury, the Minister’s own claim that only 240 posts would be lost is also looking a great deal less credible.
The department is in the process of revising staffing schedules in line with the controversial budget cutbacks.
Critically, the decision by O’Keeffe to increase the pupil-teacher ratio will mean larger classes – and fewer teachers.
In the budget the pupil-teacher ratio for second-level schools was increased to 19:1 for “free” State schools and 20:1 for fee-paying schools.
On its website the department published initial teacher allocations as of the end of May. The figures are out of date and subject to change. They take no account of allocations made over the summer for special needs teachers, language-support teachers and other teacher allocations.
The department made much of these important details yesterday.
But these technical details count for little in the increasingly bitter public relations war between the department and the teaching unions over cutbacks.
The reality is the department’s decision to publish initial figures was a classic public relations own goal.
Even if its objective was the honourable one of transparency, the department conspired to make a bad situation look even worse.
It has also given a decided edge to the teaching union in the dispute over the scale of job losses.
Mr O’Keeffe has consistently maintained that only 240 jobs will go at second level (with equivalent losses in primary schools).
But the credibility of these claims have been called into question by school managers and educationalists.
Worse still, from the Minister’s perspective, they have also been undermined by the department’s own list published on the website on Thursday.
On Thursday morning, a department figure alerted the Teachers’ Union of Ireland that the new information was on its website.
The TUI, whose influence has increased dramatically in recent years, was the first to realise the PR potential of the department’s list.
The TUI based its claims on the facts as presented on the department’s website.
According to the department, student enrolment will rise by 1.3 per cent while teacher numbers will drop by 14 per cent – a net loss of 3,500 jobs.
One trade union source said: “We were not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The department presented us with an open goal. ’’
So how many teaching jobs will be lost?
Much has happened in schools since the department made its initial allocation in May.
Over the summer most school principals would have received their revised allocation for special needs and language-support teachers.
There have also been additional teaching hours granted to cover what is called “curricular concerns’’.
This is, for example, when a school gains approval for teaching hours to ensure certain subjects remain available to pupils.
The Joint Managerial Body, representing school managers in most second-level schools, reckons 1,000 jobs will be lost at second level. Privately, most education figures agree with this estimate.
The scale of job losses will be greater in private fee-paying schools because of the additional cut in class size in these schools.
By most estimates, the average second-level school will lose two to three teachers over the coming years.
For the most part, these will be mostly young temporary teachers, invariably among the most dynamic members of the teaching staff in any school.
The cuts will also limit subject choice for pupils and cutbacks in a range of programmes like Transition Year.
The Department of Education, issued a second statement criticising the TUI yesterday.
But its initial statement acknowledges that the budget cuts could over time reduce the number of teaching posts by 1,000 over a number of years.
On their return from holidays next week, the Minister and his communications director Bernard Mallee will no doubt also move to repudiate the TUI claims.
But both may also be asking questions about what was happening in the department during their absence.