The main secondary teachers' union, ASTI, has urged the Minister for Education to spend the £20 million to £40 million he will save by not proceeding with regional education boards on reducing class sizes and other school-centred initiatives.
ASTI deputy general secretary Mr John White said the union was very pleased Mr Martin had decided to scrap the last government's proposals for education boards. It had always opposed them on the grounds they would be too bureaucratic and the money spent on them should go instead into the classroom.
However, he asked that the Government should spend the £20 million to £40 million, available to the previous minister for education boards and sanctioned by the last government, on improving conditions in schools.
Mr Martin said last month the Department of Finance had produced estimates in 1995 which showed the boards would cost £20 million to set up, if the VECs were retained, and £35 million to £40 million if the VECs were abolished and their costs transferred to the new boards.
Mr White said yesterday the Minister should divert this money to help reduce class sizes, to appoint more guidance counsellors, and to train teachers in posts of responsibility to carry out their functions.
In a presentation to the Minister last month, ASTI said the present second-level pupil-teacher ratio is 19:1, one of the highest in the EU. It argued that to bring this down to 17:1 by the school year 1999-2000, an additional 1,442 teachers would have to be employed in secondary, community and comprehensive and vocational schools.
Mr White said they had told Mr Martin the "demographic dividend" - the fall in student numbers which allows educational resources to be redistributed - provided "a final opportunity for the Irish second-level education system to be resourced in a way which is comparable with our European partners". Mr White said in 1995 Ireland's spending per second-level pupil was 54 per cent of the OECD average, a fall of 6 per cent since 1992.
ASTI told the Minister it would be "extremely short-sighted to use additional available revenue to meet short-term contingencies only or to promote popular projects".
ASTI also noted that "teachers feel somewhat overwhelmed by the demands which are made on them and by the expectations which society has of them. They also feel somewhat bruised by the barrage of public criticism which follows the identification of any flaw or perceived flaw in the school system."