IT IS “simply not possible” to completely exempt staffing levels in education from the need to cut spending because one third of all public sector employees work in the education sector, Ruairí Quinn has told the Dáil.
The Minister for Education insisted however that despite changes to guidance counsellor provision, the overall staff allocation of 19 students per teacher in schools would be maintained and they would have “discretion in balancing what they allocate for guidance against all other competing demands”.
Mr Quinn also said disadvantaged or Deis (Delivering Equality of opportunity In Schools) schools would be “sheltered”.
He was introducing a new “more favourable staffing schedule of 18.25:1 for Deis schools”.
And with a growing schoolgoing population teachers would have to be appointed to teach the expected 70,000 increase in pupil numbers in the next six years, he added.
Mr Quinn was defending another controversial education cut, this time in guidance counselling provision, which the Opposition trenchantly argued would mean either the loss of 1,000 guidance counsellors in the State’s 700 second-level schools or “letting go other teachers, maybe in the science or language disciplines”, resulting in reduced subject choice.
Fianna Fáil education spokesman Brendan Smith introduced a Private Members’ motion last night calling on the Government to reconsider its decision.
He said it would “result in the obliteration of the guidance counselling profession and have a sever social impact on young vulnerable students, particularly those with mental health problems or from disadvantaged backgrounds”.
The Cavan-Monaghan TD said the Government and Minister for Education “are once again hitting the wrong people with this decision”.
Mr Smith said guidance counsellors “work at the coalface of education” dealing with some very difficult and challenging social, personal and educational issues on a daily basis.
He said “many of these issues have greatly increased in the current economic climate” and if the service was not available in a school, high income families would be able to buy in the service but less well-off students would be the “losers”.
There would be bigger classes but “likely casualties will also be foundation classes at Leaving Cert in subjects like maths and Irish and again the weakest students will suffer”, Mr Smith said.
The Minister, who pointed out that currently 42 per cent of schools did not have a full-time guidance counsellor, said the changes would mean “there will be no specific and separate allocation for guidance provision over and above the number of teachers a school is entitled to under the general teacher allocation of 19:1”.
Guidance provision would instead be managed by school management from within their staffing schedule allocation.
“In this way principals will have discretion to balance guidance needs with the pressures to provide subject choice,” Mr Quinn said.
They could maintain overall pupil teacher ratios and this was very different from the Fianna Fáil approach when in its October 2008 budget it reduced the teacher allocation to all schools and “failed to give schools any discretion” in resource allocation, the Minister added.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin called on the Minister to reverse the cut.
“Do the decent thing and withdraw what you yourself called the termination of guidance counselling provision.”
He said if the Minister pushed ahead with the plan and took 700 posts out of schools “you will be doing a grave and long-lasting disservice to our schools and it will not be forgotten”.
Sinn Féin education spokesman Seán Crowe said that under the banner of reform the Government was “gutting” core education provision. He said the Minister was positioning the changes so “the cuts won’t be the fault of the Minister but the fault of the principals in school”.
The debate continues tonight.
