24th November 2022
Gerry Murphy, INTO Northern Secretary speaking following the budgetary announcement of November 24th, 2022, by the Secretary of State said;
“The Secretary of State is punishing our children and young people along with their teachers and other co-workers across the education sector for the financial mess his government has created. This announcement can only be described as a further slap in the face for teachers, school leaders and their co-workers all of whom managed to keep the education service functioning in the face of the Covid pandemic”.
Mr Murphy went on to say;
“Schools’ budgets have been subject to relentless cuts for over a decade. They have been forced to pair back their year-on-year spending in order to protect basic funding for the essential staffing and utility costs. This budgetary calamity, which Mr Heaton Harris is now visiting upon education, could be the final nail in the coffin for many schools. His announcement means, we are going to see further staffing cuts with schools being unable to meet the diverse needs of the children and young people in their care. We will also see schools being pushed into unprecedented levels of debt which will threaten their very existence.
What the education sector needs is not cuts, but rather, an immediate and substantial cash injection which addresses the previous decade of austerity and insulates schools against the current inflationary pressures which they are subject to. The Secretary of State appears content to allow our children and young people to be educated on the cheap which is not acceptable.”
Mr Murphy concluded by saying;
“For far too long teachers, school leaders and their support staff colleagues have kept this broken system working. Mr Heaton Harris, in targeting the aggregated schools’ budgets, has ensured that the remaining goodwill across the education sector will now, most certainly, evaporate. Given that school leaders and teachers are already taking industrial action, this situation appears to have just got worse. The Secretary of State, like so many of his predecessors, is woefully out of touch. Would a local minister be as foolish?”