Fianna Fáil will introduced legislation in the Dáil this week calling for mandatory impact assessments of Government proposals before they are implemented.
The party’s education spokesman, Charlie McConalogue, will bring forward the Education (Resource Allocation) Bill, following the announcement of education cuts, the potential effects of which he said had not been examined. The Donegal North East TD highlighted cuts in the budget for this year and last. No impact assessment or cost-benefit analysis had been done when pupil-teacher ratio increases in Deis (disadvantaged) schools were announced in budget 2012, he said.
While changes for urban schools were reversed, Mr McConalogue highlighted the subsequent cuts in career guidance teaching allocations and their impact on pupil-teacher ratios. He said there had been no assessment of the effects of the changes.
Pupil-teacher ratios
He also pointed to the increased pupil-teacher ratio from 17:1 to 19:1 in further education courses, which he said would mean the loss of 500 part-time teaching jobs. This was the equivalent of 200 whole-time positions, because of the specialist nature of a majority of the courses, including areas such as cloud computing, music technology and green energy. “There is no analysis on the impact that will have,” he said.
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