Parent power/Kathryn Holmquist With many of our schools in a shameful state and many of our children suffering, parents and teachers are coming together to form a pressure group that hopes to stop the rot

An emotional groundswell in reaction to conditions in hundreds of schools around the State has resulted in parents and teachers joining together in a radical new organisation, TLC (Tender Loving Care). Parent-power is the new trend, believe the founders of TLC, which also stands for Tuismitheoirí Teageascóirí le Chéile. "Our aim is to defend our children's human rights and improve conditions for children and teachers in schools, with no politics and no hidden agenda," says Florence Horsman-Hogan, PRO for TLC.

Primary school pupils at one school in Cork were sitting on benches made from planks of wood and bricks in a rented prefab before pupils got their screwdrivers out and made their own chairs from flatpacks. It's almost a return to the hedge schools - but very expensive ones. The school pays 250,000 per year in rent for a prefab in a field.

Carmel Nic Airt, a school principal and member of An Foras Patrúnachta, which represents 41 schools, says that many schools are worse off than this.

At least the flatpack kids have warm classrooms.

She finds herself frustrated by the fact that parents are always asking her: "What are you doing about the new building?" Her chief responsibility is the running of a curriculum, a school, its staff and finances - yet she is expected to be an architect and property developer as well, running around trying to do deals. "Just last week we were looking at old factories. We are doing things we should not be doing," says Nic Airt.

TLC will not stop until it has secured €400 million "to bring primary schools out of dilapidated conditions that are a hazard to health," says Horsman-Hogan. "We parents want to work with Noel Dempsey and help him. TLC is an idea whose time has come. Parents must get involved in creating the kinds of schools they want," says Nic Airt.

Parents and teachers from 120 schools attended the first TLC meeting in Cork, on March 8th. Two further meetings are planned in Waterford and Galway later this month (see below).

Mary-Anne Oke of Amnesty International believes that dilapidated buildings and insecure and degrading environments contravene the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (1990). Problems reported by 120 schools in Cork, include coldness and damp that is suspected to be contributing to an increase in asthma among primary school children.

Justin McCarthy, Cork representative of the INTO, claims that because schools have been identified as political hot potatoes, schools feel threatened that if they highlight poor conditions, their project funding will be delayed. For this reason, TLC has guaranteed anonymity to all schools reporting health hazards and other problems to the organisation.

"Substandard school buildings are not inevitable," McCarthy told the meeting. He urged parents and teachers to protest against the broken promises made on the issue in "every single constituency during the last election".

Modernising schools would cost €1.5 billion. "Many politicians are quick to rush to judgement on many educational issues. But the same politicians who talk about the need to modernise our school system don't appear to want to use the words modern and school buildings in the same sentence," said McCarthy.

He believes that "it is wrong that in a time of economic prosperity children should have to go to school in dilapidated, unsuitable and run down buildings. It is wrong in a wealthy country that children are subjected to damp and dreary educational surroundings. It is wrong that every school does not have a PE hall. It is wrong that there isn't a room in every school where a parent and a teacher can have a meeting. In the 21st century, it is wrong that many of our schools would be a fitting setting for a Dickens novel, rather than acting as a stimulus for eager young minds."

TLC has queried why previously budgeted funding is being withheld from 3,200 schools for minor school repairs, when only 300 are being placed under investigation.

TLC is particularly concerned at the way in which the Department of Education is haemorrhaging money to pay for rented land and premises. Some schools have been paying more than 300,000 annually in rent for prefabs they will never own, says Horsman-Hogan.

TLC has appealed to the Department of Education to reveal how much it spends annually on rented premises and lands, which it does in preference to building schools owned by the Department.

Richie Cotter, principal of St Anne's, Shankill, Co Dublin - and vice-chair of TLC - wants to know why a house can be built on a site for €120,000, when it costs €600,000 to build two classrooms.

Some 50 per cent of schools in Cork are still using rented premises after eight years. When they were founded, these schools were told to find temporary accommodation for two years. They are now being told to wait seven years, TLC claims.

Some pupils have never seen the inside of a "proper classroom", having been educated in pubs, hotel bedrooms and pre-fabs, they add.

The capitation grant, which totals 112.50 per child, is never enough, so parents have been so busy with hands-on fundraising to improve conditions and equipment in schools, they that have been unable to challenge Government.

St Anne's School in Shankill, Co Dublin has had to raise up to 30,000 for light and heating. The more than half a million parents who are members of voluntary groups and boards of management are familiar with the story.

In the midst of a frenzied schedule of pantomimes, coffee mornings and cake sales, some parents and teachers are beginning to ask "why are we doing this?" They are questioning the appropriateness of voluntary bodies running a school system that should be the work of Government, says Horsman-Hogan.

Especially when many parents are also working full-time and paying 42 per cent tax.

The positive aspect of the crisis is that parents and teachers have joined together for the sake of children. As Horsman says, ni neart go curle chieli - together we can do anything.

TLC is appealing for information on conditions in primary schools.

Next TLC meetings: Riverside Hotel, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, March 24th,

8 p.m. Free Sacre Coeur Hotel, Salthill,

Galway, March 29th, 4-6 p.m.

www.primary-tlc.com