28th April 2023
Reacting to the announcement from the Northern Ireland Secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris in regard to the Northern Ireland budget, Mark McTaggart, INTO Northern Secretary said,
“The announcement of a 2.5% cut to the education budget is an additional insult to teachers, education workers, children and parents, and represents a further failure by those who hold the purse strings to value all in this society.
Such a cut, and the fact that the lack of protection for the pressure on school budgets from inflation costs and the ever-increasing fuel costs will lead to a reduction in the number of teachers, an increase in class size and ultimately an erosion in the quality of the education that our children and young people can receive.
Such a short-sighted policy must continue to be challenged, and we again call on government to stop using our young people and educationalists as pawns in their political games, for our absentee politicians to be allowed to return to Stormont to begin to take the necessary decisions to ensure that we have the world class education system our society deserves.”