Funding 25/3/08
INTO Press Release: Statement by John Carr, General Secretary, Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, on Funding
25th March 2008Hanafin in breach of Constitutional duty to provide for free primary education
John Carr told the Education Minister, Mary Hanafin, that she was failing in her Constitutional duty to provide for free primary education.
He said the Constitution did not qualify “free” with words like minimal, incomplete or partial. “The Constitution,” he said, “was never intended to mean subsidized by raffles, cake sales, readathons or the proof of purchase vouchers of commercial companies.”
He said the totally iniquitous funding of primary education was a severe threat to the quality of primary education.
“You announced a €15 increase in capitation funding for 2008. You didn’t say that only 70% would be paid this year. You didn’t say that more than a fifth of it was then taken away by water charges.”
He said the Minister, instead of claiming a €15 increase, should have announced a €7 euro increase this year, less than half of what was claimed.
“That’s a 4.3% increase at a time when inflation is running at twice that in the education sector. By my reckoning, that’s a cutback and shows clearly that primary education is not a priority.”
“There is only one solution – schools need the funding that matches the real costs of primary education and government has a constitutional duty to provide it,” said Carr. “We are fed up seeing schools being used as a vehicle to move around public money.”
He said only when Irish government spending on education was increased to EU norms would teachers believe that education is a priority.
ENDS.