Staff cut-backs at the schools that need so much

Father Desmond McCaffrey, chairman of the board of management of Scoil Plas Mhuire in Dublin, pulled no punches when he wrote to the Department of Education and Science last May about the loss of one position on the school's teaching staff. "We implore you not to proceed with the suppression of the post," he said. His plea was unsuccessful and this month teachers at the school voted to take industrial action.

Children in the most disadvantaged and neglected schools are caught in the middle of a problem which has resulted in teachers at four primary schools voting to take industrial action over the loss of a teacher in each school. Two of the schools are in Dublin's inner city.

As well as the one-day stoppages, the INTO has organised a series of public meetings at 23 centres throughout the country over the next couple of weeks as part of a campaign to highlight staffing and funding problems in primary schools.

Three of the schools taking action are in disadvantaged areas and are taking part in the pilot Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage initiative, which is aimed at reducing the pupil-teacher ratio at junior level and improving the educational experience of young pupils. This year each of these schools lost a teacher from its staff.

The INTO claims that the cutbacks will damage the work achieved to date under the initiative. Its campaign aims to highlight the fact that Ireland has the most overcrowded classrooms in Europe - as well as what it sees as inequality between primary and other levels of education.

The Department claims that this is "a union-led industrial action." Teachers in the four striking schools say that, first and foremost, they are concerned for their students. Public meetings for parents and the wider community will be held in the schools later this week and next week.

Teachers fears are that the cutbacks will result in their pupils dropping out of school altogether. The unspoken fear for some, especially in Dublin's inner city, is that some of their pupils who live in the poorest areas will end up in trouble.

"We're not regimental in the school," says Finian McGrath, principal of Scoil Plas Mhuire on Dorset Street, Dublin. "We're glad to see them in the room for the day."

Matter-of-factly, he adds that it's likely that a percentage of children in inner-city schools will end up in Mountjoy. He talks about a small number of children at his own school who are at risk, children whose parents are drug addicts, children who come to school hungry.

Next Tuesday, one-day pickets will be placed outside the school - and at the Central Model Senior National School in Marlborough Street, Dublin.

Earlier this year, John Lonergan, governor of Mountjoy Prison, addressed almost 500 primary school principals and teachers at the Mary Immaculate College Centenary Summer School in Limerick that there are six postal pockets of neglect in Dublin city. "Until such time as young people in socially-deprived areas experience real benefits from the educational system, the present two-tier system in our society will continue," he said.

He backed up his view with a survey of Mountjoy prisoners, published last year, which found that 80 per cent of prisoners surveyed in 1996 had left school before they were 16 years of age. Over 60 per cent said they had mitched regularly from school.

Lonergan believes that there's a lack of awareness about the damage caused by living in these pockets of urban disadvantage causes, but he adds, "education is a key" in tackling it.

And, he adds, " Breaking the Cycle is a key initiative that was working. He also lists the provision of specialist teachers as being very important.

Reacting to the threatened industrial action at the Central Model Senior School of which the Minister for Education and Science, Micheal Martin, is patron, a Department spokesman told Education & Living last week, that the children who attend this school "are being very well looked after. They are being disadvantaged even further by this union-led industrial action."

The Department argues that the Breaking the Cycle initiative is not being affected by teaching cut-backs but the INTO disputes this. The doubling up of classes, which is the result of some of these cut-backs, takes place in many schools and does not obstruct good teaching, the Department argues.

Austin Corcoran, a INTO representative for the Dublin schools, says that the teachers who have voted to take action, "are not looking for anything for themselves. They're fighting for the kids." The Department claims that the school is not organising its classes to the maximum benefit of the students. Corcoran defends the class breakdown of the schools, which is designed by the principal with the agreement of the board of management.

McGrath says the Department has no idea what it's like to work with children whose parents are drug addicts or unemployed or in prison or not at home. "It's the children in the most disadvantaged schools who will feel these cut-backs most of all."

Lonergan points out that "an economic boom doesn't guarantee that we don't have those serious pockets of neglect. I'd argue that every child should get a fair start in life . . . but they don't start from a level playing field.

"It would seem to be common-sense that one of the key elements would be to focus on eliminating those depressed ghettos. The whole crime thing, the drug thing, the serious delinquency, most of that comes from those areas.

"You can see it even in the condition of the schools, which are dilapidated and run down. The whole environment and atmosphere is so stark."

On the other hand, says Lonergan, there are the children in the well-off schools - "many of them will go on to hold down some key jobs in banking, law etc." How they will use those positions of power will, he believes, dictate how social conditions are changed in the future.

"The people who have the resources are benefiting from the current economic boom," he says. "With money there are so many things you can do for your children - if they want a new book, for example. They get every opportunity. The contrast between them and the parents that don't have resources is huge."

In more affluent areas, a child is almost guaranteed access to third-level education, says Lonergan. The culture in such homes is focused on education.

For its part, the Department says that the current teaching cut-backs are the result of a long-standing staffing agreement with the INTO. "The effect of this is that some schools lose teachers and some gain teachers each year," it claims.

Pupil-teacher ratio(PTR) figures are at the core of this dispute. "The figures are very telling," a Department spokesman says. "How can you respond to disadvantage if you don't use the PTR. Schools will always look for more. The Minister's priority is dealing with disadvantage."