MORE THAN 140 schools will lose teachers and a further 200 will be unable to appoint new staff after the Department of Education formally abandoned plans to reduce class size in primary schools this year, writes Seán Flynn, Education Editor
The decision, posted on the department's website this week, will see many of the State's primary schools teaching the same number of pupils with one fewer teacher.
There will be no reduction in class size as budgetary cutbacks in education take effect. The Republic already has the second-largest average class size in the EU.
Last night John Carr of the INTO said the department's announcement "will be met with anger and resentment in schools all over the country. The job losses, which will have a devastating effect on schools, could have been spared if the Government had delivered on its commitments," he said.
The Programme for Government promised to cut class sizes progressively over the lifetime of this Government, after some 18,000 people attended public meetings - organised by the INTO on the issue - in the run-up to the election. But the commitment was abandoned by the Government late last year.
Last night a spokeswoman for the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, said the decision to row back on class-size commitments had already been announced and widely publicised in the Budget last December.
The Programme for Government said the staffing schedule in schools - which determines the number of teachers - would be reduced by one point a year for the next three years.
Currently this is set at one teacher for every 27 pupils. The commitment was to reduce this on a yearly basis to one teacher for every 24 pupils by September 2010.
A notice to schools, posted on the department's website, however, shows there will be no change in this year's figure and that schools will get a teacher for every 27 pupils instead of the promised 26.
Schools that are one short of the required number will lose a teacher.
The principal of one school in this position said yesterday's directive from the department represented "a disaster and will provoke an outcry from parents who had lobbied for an end to overcrowded classes".
Donal O'Donoghue of St Peter and Paul's National School in Baldoyle, Dublin, is now one pupil short of the number now required to retain his nine teachers.
"Had the Government kept the promise in the Programme for Government, this school could have retained the teacher. Now we will have at least the same number of pupils with one teacher less."
The controversy over class size represents the latest challenge for Ms Hanafin, who has been criticised in recent weeks for her record on autism education.
Last night the department said the various commitments in the programme for government were predicated on continuing strong economic growth.
But with the budgetary position tightening, the Government was not in a position to meet all of these commitments.
It pointed out that reduction in class size had already been made in each of the last two years.