The Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) has warned further jobs could be lost at primary schools because of cuts in the number of support language teachers for non-Irish national students.
The union accused the Government of taking a "hardline approach" to allocating the number of English language teachers in schools.
The level of extra teaching support allocated to schools is determined by the numbers of eligible pupils enrolled and on their language proficiency. INTO said it had examples of schools where the number of pupils without English was increasing while the number of teachers was being cut.
The number of extra teaching support staff has fallen by nearly 500 over the past year due to cutbacks. There are currently 1,182 language support teachers at primary level and 365 at post-primary level, compared to 1,620 and 560 respectively in the 2008/09 term.
The union said today it feared a similar number of jobs could go again this summer based on calls it has received from teachers affected by further cuts announced in the last budget.
Sheila Nunan, general secretary of the INTO, said the Government's approach to filling support language teachers posts was jeopardising the futures of young students.
“Two years' teaching is only enough for children to develop surface understanding of a language and conversational competence. To get to a standard where newcomer children can learn subjects like science and geography through English takes a further five to seven years," she said.
Ms Nunan said Government cutbacks meant newcomers will be educated in “environments that limit their personal, intellectual and social development“.
“Current government policy in this area has nothing to do with meeting children’s English language needs. It is a crude mechanism to cut jobs from primary schools and nothing else,” she added.
The Department of Education has defended its allocation process. A spokesman said additional support is available for those schools that have at least 25 per cent of their total enrolment made up of pupils that require language support.
Applications for additional language support are dealt with through the staffing appeals process. Last year, 102 schools appealed through the process for additional English language teachers, of which 64 were successful.
In the current school year the appeals process resulted in 73 additional language support posts being allocated to 64 schools. This meant some schools had up to five or six extra English language support staff, as pupils' needs there were seen to warrant this support, the department said.
