Schools look set to receive a significant increase in funding in the Budget later this month to help pay for soaring heating and lighting bills.
It comes as school managers call for a dramatic increase in capitation payments amid concern that parents’ voluntary contributions will be needed to keep schools warm and lit over the coming months.
Department of Education sources said that while the Budget remains under discussion, schools “will not be found wanting” and “appropriate levels” of additional funding will be secured.
Primary school management bodies, representing about 3,300 schools, have jointly called for an immediate increase in the basic pupil capitation rate by 50 per cent, along with 10 per cent for the ancillary services grant.
At second level, the Joint Managerial Body, which represents more than 400 voluntary secondary schools, also urged the immediate index-linking of all capitation grants to allow schools to pay their bills.
In addition, it said a Government commitment must be made to eliminate the need for schools to seek voluntary contributions from families over a three-year period.
While schools receive direct funding from the Department of Education to pay teachers’ salaries, they receive a variety of set capitation grants out of which they are intended to pay for heating, lighting and other expenses.
However, many schools say they are still reliant on contributions from parents and fundraising in order to pay their bills, even in normal times.
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Minister for Education Norma Foley said earlier this week that schools are receiving record levels of funding and additional money for enhanced cleaning, introduced during Covid, has been retained.
She said her department was in Budget discussions to ensure any additional resources required will be provided to schools.
On the question of whether schools will be required to leave windows and doors open to minimise the threat of Covid this winter, she said schools are able to access all necessary resources to meet their ventilation requirements.
Ms Foley pointed out that schools, in general, account for less than 5 per cent of the public sector heating bill.
The country’s seven main primary school management bodies — An Foras Pátrúnachta, Catholic Primary School Management Association, Church of Ireland Board of Education, Educate Together, Education and Training Boards Ireland, National Association of Boards of Management in Special Education and the Muslim Primary Board — issued a joint statement on Tuesday calling for an immediate increase in school capitation rates.
They said this was essential so schools are not “totally dependent” on voluntary contributions from hard-pressed parents to provide basic requirements such as heat, light and water.
The joint statement noted that even before the recent rises in electricity prices, the price of heating oil has risen by nearly 115 per cent this year and general inflation is running at over 9 per cent.
Seamus Mulconry, general secretary of the Catholic Primary School Management Association, said: “Parents have been subsidising schools for years but the ‘bank of mum and dad’ is not solvent enough to support primary schools — the State must act to fulfil its constitutional obligation to provide a free primary education.”
Emer Nowlan, chief executive of Educate Together, added that disadvantaged students stand to lose out most when schools are underfunded. “Chronic underfunding is now at crisis level and the Government must act,” she said.
The JMB said that as cost-of-living inflation spirals, it is becoming increasingly difficult for schools to seek voluntary subscriptions from “hard-pressed families to make up a deficit unnecessarily created by Government” in its unequal funding of schools by sector.
It says voluntary schools, in particular, are underfunded and called for a three-year policy to eliminate the need for schools to seek voluntary contributions from families.
