It’s enough to make Minister Foley say (p)Ouch.
The National Principals’ Forum is in disbelief that Budget 2025 has not delivered for the primary education system in any meaningful way. Free school books, free school lunches and free bus transport, as welcome as they may be for parents, will do nothing to offset the spiraling running costs on schools, nor will it help a single child with additional needs access the supports they so desperately need. The headline news about mobile phone pouches is nothing more than a distraction. Our budget lobby asked for three items: Leadership Supports, School Funding and Special Education Supports.
The drip-feeding restoration of positions of responsibility must stop. Schools require a full complement of management and it is beyond comprehension that this cut made in the depths of the recession has still yet to be fully restored. The National Principals’ Forum is dismayed that no movement has been made for administrative time for principals and deputy principals.
Caroline Walkin, principal of Newtownwhite ETNS, Co Mayo says “Principals are stepping down from leadership for a reason. It is becoming so difficult for management trying to keep spirits lifted and it is exhausting on a teaching principal.”
The announced 12% increase to the capitation grant falls far short of the minimum level required for schools to pay the bills. All utilities have increased significantly in the last twenty years when the capitation grant was at its previous peak. The one-off payments provide no assurances for schools. It was also disappointing to note that the ancillary grant was not mentioned with the vast majority of schools still unable to afford a caretaker. Principal of SN Seamus Naofa, Kilkenny, Laura Kelly says: “I do not know how we will manage to keep our school open from January onwards as we do not have the money to pay our cleaner, pay for heating oil or pay the electricity bill.”
However, it is unforgivable that children with additional needs have been ignored yet again by the Department of Education. When a child is lucky enough to get a place in a school, their problems are only beginning. As principal, Killian O’Reilly, St. Mary’s National School, Waterford says: “There is simply not enough resourcing to support inclusion of pupils with additional needs in mainstream classrooms.”
Liam Murphy, principal of Our Lady Immaculate JNS, Darndale states: “There has been reckless disregard for the provision of Special Education, particularly in mainstream schools. The inability of children to access the necessary services has meant that an increasing burden is placed on schools to deal with these issues, despite not being qualified in any of the clinical areas concerned.”
With dwindling resources being offered to schools to share among an increasing number of children with a variety of complex needs, no budget to support children once they are in school is nothing short of a scandal.
Angela Dunne from the National Principals’ Forum said “Principals from across the country sat before a cross party meeting in Leinster House in June outlining the funding, leadership & SEN crisis in our schools, appealing for awareness & assistance. It is an absolute shame that our information seems to have fallen on deaf ears. A motion on these matters passed unamended in the Dáil thereafter. To what end? It was an opportunity lost and irretrievable damage to primary school children and education after this budget.”