SOME 30 per cent of essential funding for secondary schools has to be raised by voluntary contributions from parents and other fund raising, school managers were told yesterday.
Ferdia Kelly, general secretary of the Joint Managerial Board (JMB), representing most second level school managers, said the Budget has tipped most schools into a deepening financial crisis.
The Republic, he said, lagged well behind the OECD average spend on education. Only two countries spend a smaller share of national income on education.
Mr Kelly was speaking at the JMB annual conference in Killarney, Co Kerry.
In his address, Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe acknowledged “that some of the decisions the Government has taken will create real challenges for you in managing your schools”.
Explaining the economic backdrop to the Budget measures, he said the gap between income and expenditure is not sustainable.
He said over 20 per cent of spending used to pay teachers, nurses, gardaí and other public servants will have to be borrowed to ensure that schools, hospitals and other public services can continue.
There were no easy options, given the scale of the savings that have to be made, he said.
“Eighty per cent of my current budget goes on pay and pensions for staff working across the education sector. The 20 per cent non-pay element of my budget is used for school funding, school transport and other services.
“The bottom line is that since administrative expenditure is such a small proportion of the budget for my department it was impossible to avoid having to impact on frontline services and this has consequences for schools.”
In his address, Bishop Leo O’Reilly said many unfair and unfounded charges of elitism had been made against Catholic schools when a Department of Education audit of enrolment policies was published 18 months ago.
However, he said Catholic schools have to acknowledge that in many places – because of the historical evolution of the education system at second level – “we tend to attract the more academically inclined students. Given this historical tendency we have to take extra care to ensure that our policies and practices are such as to encourage and welcome students of all backgrounds and abilities to our schools.”
Dr O’Reilly is chairman of the Education Commission of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
The president of JMB/Association of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools, Noel Merrick, predicted major job losses among teaching staff.
“Despite all the spinning to the contrary, every school in our sector will lose one, two, three and in former disadvantaged schools, up to six teachers.
“In Co Kildare alone, 53 posts will be lost.”
He said the abolition of the transition year grant and other supports will leave schools with a serious shortfall in funding. Schools are losing over 20 per cent of their total grant income with medium-sized schools losing up to €30,000 and some schools losing as much as €60,000,” he said.
