THE Ulster Teachers Union president has urged parents to make an issue of education cuts in the current, Westminster elections campaign.
Ms Joyce Cavalleros told the opening session of the union conference in Newcastle, Co Down, there was a crisis in educational funding, with 600 teachers expected to be made redundant.
"It is now time for councillors ... to exert some clout. It is time for parents to take up the fight and now is the very time to do it."
Ms Cavalleros said parents would not realise the extent of the cuts until September when they would find that their children's teacher was not back and that their class had been split between two other classes, with a consequent increase in pupil numbers.
At secondary level, children's subject choices would be limited to those offered by the remaining teachers and their career chances could be blighted forever.
Ms Cavalleros also called for a "flying squad" of people to help teachers with disruptive pupils. These could be teachers on a new system of phased retirement. A teacher might work 75 per cent of the time and take 25 per cent pension and gradually ease out of work.
"This would fit with schools needing to restructure without total haemorrhage."
Mr Gordon Topping, chief executive of Northern Ireland's largest education and library board, criticised "the sustained and calculated attack on our education service" through spending cuts, the worst he had seen in 25 years.
Education boards were millions of pounds short of running their services at last year's level, and that in turn had seen serious cuts compared with the previous year.
