Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin has expressed concern about a new trend which has seen members of the public raise planning objections to new or upgraded school facilities. Until recently, she said, such objections were virtually unknown.
Ms Hanafin was speaking during a special briefing on the €32 billion education package in the new National Development Plan (NDP).
She said the objections raised - especially by those living in mature areas in Dublin and other major cities - was delaying the roll-out of some new school projects. She could understand people objecting to large-scale school developments providing for up to 1,000 pupils and the extra traffic this might generate.
However, she said, some applications for temporary accommodation like prefabs were drawing objections. "People are objecting to temporary accommodation which I cannot understand because it can offer an immediate response to the educational needs of children in their own community, " she said.
At present, the department is dealing with objections raised to school building plans in several counties including Kilkenny, Galway and Westmeath. Officials said objections usually come from long-established residents in well developed areas.
Meanwhile, the failure of the department's school-building programme to keep pace with rapidly developing areas in commuter towns in west Dublin, Kildare and Meath has been widely criticised.
Officials however said yesterday that new generic school designs and closer co-operation with local authorities would speed up the process. A series of meetings is ongoing between department officials and county managers to quicken the process of site-acquisition and planning.
Twenty-two sites have been purchased for school buildings in Dublin in the past year, most of them in rapidly growing areas.
More than €5 billion will be invested in school building and modernisation during the seven years of the NDP. Of this, €2.2 billion will go to primary schools, €1.6 billion to second-level with the balance made up of public private partnerships.
In all, there will be 100,000 additional places; this should meet the projected increase in the number of primary pupils over the next seven years.
The number of second-level pupils is also expected to increase dramatically from about 2012 but Ms Hanafin said there was sufficient surplus capacity in the second-level system to cope.
Other key features of education in the NDP include:
€640 million for language support teachers to assist newcomer children with language difficulties;
Provision for an additional 7,000 adult literacy places including the possible abolition of fees for some part-time mature students;
An additional €360 million to tackle educational disadvantage as part of a €12 billion package on social inclusion;
€5.3 billion for children with special needs - at present one-in-five teachers at primary level is assisting special needs children.
The plan also pledges to address the low literacy levels of pupils in disadvantaged schools.
On third-level, more than €14.7 billion will be dedicated to higher education, research and development. While much of this has been previously announced, there is an additional €510 million for the new Strategic Innovation Fund. Some €2 billion is being spent on building projects at third-level. Most of this is likely to go to the seven universities.
On research, Ms Hanafin said some 62 per cent of new jobs would require a third-level qualification by 2010, compared to a figure of just 30 per cent in 2001.
The NDP commits €1.7 billion for the full delivery of the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation.