Taking the fair out of the Christmas fairs

Teaching Matters/Valerie Monaghan: It's that time of year again. Time to root out all the books you read last year, pack up any unwanted gifts lying around the house and select a few bottles of holiday wine to donate to the local primary school's Christmas fair.

Wherever you travel throughout the country this month, you will see signs advertising the local Christmas fair. Santa must be having a very busy time every Saturday and Sunday appearing at a school near you.

It may seem like an unusual custom to celebrate the birth of the Saviour by flogging tickets and selling all sorts of jumble but it is necessary to enable schools to keep the show on the road after the meagre grants from the Department of Education have been spent. And that is after they have collected the tokens from supermarkets and newspapers. These Christmas fairs are not fundraising for fancy extras but rather, for basic needs.

Every year, boards of management are stretched to find enough money to run schools effectively. Increasing fuel costs drive prices up and schools feel the pinch just as much as everyone else. Waste charges, insurance costs and wages all increase but unfortunately the grants provided to fund schools do not keep pace.

In addition to this, grants to schools are delayed until vital data is collected by the Department of Education. It is not unusual for schools to open in September and to receive the first grants any time from November to January. From the outset therefore we are starting from a negative position. Why can each school not be given an annual budget at the start of the year on which firm plans can be made?

Parents and teachers work together to ensure the success of the fair and raise a considerable amount of money through their efforts. But whatever way you look at it, raising money in schools like this forms a local education tax. If we could harness this energy to seek a real increase in the amount of government funding to keep our schools functioning properly we'd have a great system.

Teachers and parents find it embarrassing to ask friends to buy tickets, sponsor a race night or donate a prize for a school fund- raising activity. Parents are also fed up being asked to pay extra in voluntary contributions and to support additional activities throughout the school year. Schools are not charitable organisations. When was the last time the Garda had to go out and beg for money from friends and family to put petrol in the squad car? So much for free education!

Another complaint is that grants must be used for narrowly designated purposes, whether this spending is necessary or not. For example, our school receives a grant of about €5,000 to maintain our school building each year but this money can only be spent in certain ways. It may not be used for on-going cleaning, to pay the gas bill or for grounds maintenance costs but can be spent for example on furniture, replacing windows or the purchase of a new lawnmower. Furthermore, if we manage to get a good deal from a friendly supplier, we are not free to spend the savings on other requirements. Likewise, grants received for computer software and hardware cannot be used to purchase much-needed ink cartridges when they need to be replaced or to repair the computer that has mysteriously crashed. More flexibility is needed so that schools can address their priority spending needs.

When visiting schools in Canada earlier this year, I was interested to find out if they shared our financial difficulties. They have a different system and a lot of services are bought centrally. The money received by schools is used solely for educational resources and training for staff, if required. Could we not adopt this kind of system? It would seem to make sense, for example, for government to insure all schools instead of giving each school a grant. Surely they could get a better rate and ensure that everyone was covered fully if this was handled centrally.

This system worked in a different area this year when the Government awarded contracts to a number of companies to install broadband computer networks. This is so much more sensible than the previous initiative to provide computers to all schools. Every school had to purchase its own equipment, having collected three quotations and then selecting the cheapest, though not necessarily the best, quote. Imagine the deals that could be made available if a number of companies had been selected to provide for all our needs.

Another financial difficulty is that many of the staff are not paid directly by the department. The school gets a grant for this. A lot of extra work is created for boards paying wages and deducting taxes from employees. The timing of grants often causes a cash-flow problem but this would not arise if everyone was on a central payroll system. It might also lead to more realistic salaries being offered to ancillary staff such as secretaries. It is embarrassing trying to hire staff for such paltry wages. The department is not in the front line of this but insulated behind the grants system to schools.

But back to the fundraiser of the moment - the Christmas fair. Every year we parents collect our children's unwanted toys and the toys that they have outgrown and we send them to the school. It's a sort of a charitable waste disposal system. But then we give our children money to go the fair and what do they do? They buy someone else's waste - or in some cases buy the same rubbish back again.

The Minister is laughing all the way to the bank as we pick up the slack in education spending. There has to be an easier way to finance a school system.

Valerie Monaghan is principal of Scoil Chiarán, Glasnevin, Dublin