The Tanaiste and Minister for Education and Skills, Mary Coughlan was in Kilkenny this week where she defended the government’s record on spending on education.
The government was slammed in a recent OECD report published this week which stated that the Irish government ranked 29th out of 33 countries for their investment in education amounting to just 4.7 per cent of the GDP.
“The government spend on education in this country is above average when taken in context,” the Tanaiste told the Kilkenny Advertiser.
“And although we are in very difficult economic times, my department continues to invest in special education, replacement of teachers and in capital programmes, ie school buildings. We have also invested heavily in capital technology and I know that other ministerial colleagues of mine have had to give up a lot in their departments in order for the government to be able to do this. We have to look at the positives in times like these. In Ireland our literacy levels are very good and because of our significant investment we offer a broad variety of curriculum choices to students unlike the UK where my ministerial counterpart has been criticised for having a too-focussed education system.”
Minister Coughlan also pointed to the Maths curriculum and added that the new ‘Project Maths’ programme roll-out was extremely important.
SNAs
When asked about the cull in SNA positions in some unfortunate schools in the Kilkenny area, Minister Coughlan was quick to dismiss the negative impact it was having on classrooms.
“There has been no loss of SNAs where they have been required by a particular student. SNAs are assigned to a particular student and when that student moves on or out of a school the SNA must also move as they are not assigned to the school but to the pupil.
“It is a waste of resources to have an SNA in a classroom where they are not required when they may be badly needed somewhere else. There has been no change in policy by the government in regard to SNAs and the needs are currently being served,” she added.
Third level fees
Third level fees are another area which saw the minister under fire this summer with fears that third level is going to become inaccessible to many if the mooted plan to reintroduce fees is introduced in the near future.
The minister played down the issue and stressed that currently there were no plans to introduce fees.
“We have a programme for government for the next two years and the government has already given a guarantee that there will be no fees introduced in this period.”
However, when asked about a back-door increase in the form of registration fees, the minister could give no guarantee that massive hikes would not occur.
“The registration fees are a matter for the universities and colleges themselves and the department has nothing to do with this. All I can guarantee is that there will be no rise in fees for the next two years,” she replied.
