The Northern Minister for Education, Mr Martin McGuinness, has been accused of attempting to divert resources from Protestant schools in a review of funding.
The claim was made as Mr McGuinness presented a consultation document on reforming the methods used for determining school funding to the Assembly yesterday.
The Minister said that under the proposed plan the seven formulae for allocating resources to schools would be replaced by one single calculation to ensure a fairer distribution of funds. While most of the Assembly members welcomed the general thrust of the review, all had reservations, especially Mr Sammy Wilson of the DUP.
Mr Wilson accused the Minister of "skewing resources" towards the grant-maintained sector, comprised mostly of Catholic Church-run schools.
Mr Wilson said that while the document spoke of refocusing funding towards those schools where there was social need, the method used was biased against schools in Belfast, and in the (predominantly Protestant) state-controlled sector.
Mr Wilson said the original document seen by the Assembly's education committee had not based the allocation of extra money on the number of pupils receiving school dinners and accused the Minister of "arbitrarily changing the figures" in order to secure the support of nationalists.
Mr Wilson said that under the formula put forward in the consultation document, a secondary school in Belfast with about 1,000 pupils "could lose £160,000 to £170,000 per year, that's equivalent to four teachers".
The Minister defended the school meals criteria, saying there was ample research to indicate it was an effective measurement of social need.
Other members had concerns about how the schools' need would be calculated.
Mr Tommy Gallagher of the SDLP called for more detail in this field, citing the needs of rural schools with a greater reliance on school transport.
Mr Billy Hutchinson, of the PUP, said it was unfair that schools which were subjected to sectarian vandalism had to fund repairs from their own budgets.
Prof Monica McWilliams, of the Women's Coalition, called for extra resources to be diverted to schools dealing with disruptive pupils.
Under the plans in the consultation document, pupils in Irish language schools would receive an additional £100 per primary pupil, with £25 extra for those in secondary Irish-language education.
Mr Danny Kennedy, of the Ulster Unionist Party, criticised this extra funding for Irish-language schools. But Mr Barry McElduff, of Sinn Fein, said he was surprised at this stance which ran contrary to the provisions of the Belfast Agreement referring to the promotion of the language.
The Assembly voted to "take note" of the consultation document.