EDUCATION:HUNDREDS OF schools will remain closed today as freezing conditions are slow to clear.
More than 660 schools were forced to close yesterday in Northern Ireland and a similar number are expected to remain closed today.
The North was badly hit with heavy snowfall on Monday.
Minister for Education Caitriona Ruane defended the decision by several hundred school principals to close their schools, citing the need to safeguard children.
Her remarks followed a litany of complaints by parents on local radio shows that teachers were closing schools while other workers continued as normally as possible.
“We are fortunate to have very dedicated and professional teaching staff who will do everything to ensure children do not fall behind in their studies,” Ms Ruane said. “I appreciate the inconvenience this can cause for parents but know that they too put the safety of their children first.”
Translink, which organises rail and bus services, was again forced to withdraw some services – especially in Cos Derry, Tyrone and Armagh, which suffered the worst of the snowfalls which paralysed the region on Monday.
In the Republic, the Department of Education did not have a figure for the number of closures, saying it was up to individual schools to make a decision on whether to close or not. Many schools are expected to open today in areas where conditions have improved.
A text service used by 1,700 schools to alert parents to closures was restored yesterday, having broken down late on Monday. The TextaParent.ie service shut down at about 9pm due to the level of traffic on the site.
The breakdown in service was “as a result of unprecedented demand which overloaded the server”, Seán Cottrell, director of the Irish Primary Principals’ Network, which provides the text service, said.
He added that the unpredictable weather conditions meant that schools had sent out multiple updates to parents, overloading the system.
The service was restored at 9am yesterday morning.
“We have put measures in place to make sure that the server can handle a much higher volume,” Mr Cottrell said.
More than half a million texts were sent via the TextaParent.ie between Sunday last, when the cold snap began affecting schools, and Monday.