A decision by the Department of Education to use 1,000 new teaching posts in the next school year to reduce the pupil/teacher ratio from 19:1 to 18:1 has been strongly criticised by teachers.
The Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) said reducing the ratio at second level meant every school in the State would get extra teachers. "Under this approach a poor school will get the same as a feepaying school," said a TUI statement. Its president, Mr Joe Carolan, said this was a "scattergun" approach and the Department should instead target the teaching posts at schools with serious problems of disadvantage.
The TUI is requesting an immediate meeting with the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, to raise their concerns. Mr Carolan claimed the decision was also a breach of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF) which said educational resources should be specifically targeted at disadvantage. He called on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to "take up this blatant breach" of the PPF.
Dr Woods said at the teacher conferences a fortnight ago that he would reduce the ratio by one using the 1,000 posts.
Mr Carolan said everyone wanted to see the pupil/teacher ratio brought down, but he said the first priority should be to target disadvantage. A spokeswoman for the Department of Education rejected the TUI's claim and said a substantial portion of the posts would be devoted to tackling disadvantage. However, Mr Carolan said all of the 1,000 posts would be needed across all schools if the ratio was to be reduced by one.
In contrast to the TUI, the president of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI), Ms Bernadine O'Sullivan, said her union agreed with distributing the posts across all schools.
"Disadvantage exists in every school and that is why we should give teachers to all schools." She said there were separate allocations made for dealing with problems like early school leaving which was associated with disadvantage.
The 1,000 jobs is the largest allocation of teachers to second level in recent years and various education groups have been lobbying for the posts to be earmarked for their sector.