OPINION:The Budget's asset-stripping of our schools system is an attack on vulnerable students, writes Don Ryan
EVEN BEFORE the announcement of last month's savage Budget cuts, the latest statistics from the Department of Education and Science show that one in five students who start first year at second level will not complete the Leaving Certificate programme.
This is a staggering and extremely worrying statistic. The headline ratio of one in four boys dropping out is even more glaring. In the Dublin city area, the overall rate of completion is an even lower 72.1 per cent, or almost three out of every 10 students not completing their second-level education.
This already unacceptable situation is set to worsen in the coming years unless some of the most vicious and foolhardy budget cuts in living memory are withdrawn.
Taking the fight to educational disadvantage has been a tired mantra for successive ministers for education and science over the past 20 years.
However, it has been cheap talk because not nearly enough was done, the Teachers' Union of Ireland believes, to alleviate this huge social problem when record budget surpluses would have permitted the exchequer to do so.
In most civilised societies it would go without saying that at a time when our economic outlook is not so bright, we would try to protect those most exposed to hardship and poverty. Not so in Ireland, where students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, Travellers and minority ethnic students have been singled out for particularly brutal treatment by way of irreparably damaging their future prospects.
The catastrophic effects of the change in the staffing schedule of schools have been well documented over the last few weeks, with TUI predicting a loss of 1,200 teaching posts at second level. In addition to the inevitability of larger class sizes, choices for students will be reduced through loss of subjects and amalgamation of classes and subjects. The adverse effect of larger classes on school discipline has not yet been identified in this debate but it is also set to worsen schools' difficulties in fostering positive behaviour. Research points to improved engagement with learning and reduced anti-social behaviour in smaller classes.
The Government's asset-stripping of education is a direct attack on those most vulnerable students whose retention within the system for both the Junior and Leaving Certificate cycles is already an uphill struggle.
Cuts to the Junior Certificate Schools Programme, Leaving Cert Applied and Leaving Cert Vocational Programme will have a devastating effect. These programmes, designed specifically to cater for students of lower academic ability, will be damaged and destabilised.
They promote and support retention through a variety of innovative learning experiences. Withdrawal of funding for these initiatives will significantly restrict the capacity of already struggling schools to provide students with the mix of learning experiences that are crucial in enabling them to reach their potential.
A principal in a second-level school last week described these programmes to me as absolutely critical in tackling mass early-leaving from his disadvantaged school. Student retention is a constant challenge in his community, but he now believes these new impediments severely limit the options his school can offer students not completely suited to the regular mainstream programmes. For him it is a worry: for his students it is an appalling prospect.
It follows that the Budget's removal of the facility to replace teachers absent on school business will also severely restrict the usage of field and study trips to complement the innovative education methodologies core to these programmes. The slashing of the enhanced capitation grant for Traveller children by 50 per cent is another attack on a vulnerable student cohort.
The withdrawal of capitation funding for schools not at present in the scheme for disadvantaged schools (called the DEIS programme) will also exacerbate an already dire situation.
The education cuts have been put in place for short-term economic gain. Only the short-sighted cannot see their disastrous long-term social repercussions.
• Don Ryan is president of the Teachers' Union of Ireland