Download Pre Budget Submission pdf (4 pages)

Educate Together's Pre-Budget Submission

Its as Simple as A B C D!

A Funding for Primary Education

The Irish State has failed in its obligation to adequately fund primary education. Despite publicity around improvements in funding, the proportion of GDP that Ireland invests in education has steadily fallen over the last 20 years.

The rate of investment per child at primary level consistently lags behind that invested in second level education. This leaves each National School in the country with an increasing burden of fundraising in order to make ends meet.

This is unacceptable. Educate Together is calling on the Government to raise the capitation grant for primary school children by €100. This measure will cost around €45 million. It is the most direct, efficient and immediate means to put resources directly into the hands of schools to spend on children’s education.

B Support Primary Management

The Irish State invests a total of €95 per annum in the management of each National School. This means our government invests less than €15 per voluntary Board member.

Yet the Irish State relies on volunteers for the management of its entire primary education system.

This huge resource of social capital - amounting to approximately 21,000 people throughout the country - is being undermined by lack of support.

This layer of voluntary management offers huge benefits to the State. Well run national schools promoting an ethos of volunteerism can access resources that no amount of direct funding can achieve. It is urgently necessary to fund primary management bodies to provide training and support services for schools. Immediate steps are required to encourage volunteering in schools by providing incentives, funding and guaranteed time-off-work to attend Board meetings and recognised courses.

The government needs to immediately allocate supports for Primary Management to the value of €3 million.

C Funding For New Schools

Ireland is in a phase of rapid growth.

Government figures confidently predict that the population of all urban centres will rise in the next 20 years. Dublin alone is expected to rise to 2 million by 2020. The growth in population, employment and housing will demand a large number of new schools.

At present there is no efficient method to ensure that schools are built on time for the new residents in housing estates.

In the Dublin area alone, there are some 50 sites reserved for new schools. With the price of development land now exceeding €1m per acre and a new school requiring more than 3 acres, this represents a potential cost to the State in excess of €150 million.

This cost can be avoided if the Government amends the Planning and Development Act to require the transfer of sites for schools as a condition of rezoning decisions.

Not to move on this issue now is negligent and wasteful of State resources. The availability of sites is the key to the efficient delivery of new schools.

There must be a training and development budget for new schools. If the State is investing up to €10m in constructing a new school building, it is irresponsible not to ensure that the management infrastructure is in place and trained to ensure that such investments deliver maximum benefit.

The Department of Education and Science must be funded to enter into a service level agreement with school management bodies to provide this detailed support and training.

Educate Together proposed such an agreement to the Department of Education and Science earlier this year.

The investment required is in the region of €200,000 per school over a period of 6 years. This represents approximately 3% of the capital cost of a new school building.

This service provider model is in line with best practice, is sensible, excellent value and must be acted upon in this Budget round.

D Multi-denominational education is a vital option for the future of Irish society

21st Century Ireland is a prosperous growing society with many religious and cultural identities. It is vital that our education system adapts to this reality in time. At present, 98% of our primary schools are owned and controlled by specific religious denominations.

This is unsustainable into the future. As our society changes, our obligations to our people’s human and Constitutional rights demand that we create alternatives.

Educate Together is working to build a national network of schools that must in law provide equality of access and esteem irrespective of social, cultural and religious differences.

This is the only realistic way in which the structure of our primary school system can be brought into balance with the needs of our population.

As patron of these schools Educate Together is obliged to operate in transparent, democratic and accountable fashion and is fully bound by all the grounds of the State’s Equal Status and Employment Equality Laws.

This movement must be supported by Government. Educate Together is attempting to meet increasing demand with State grants that meet only 20% of its current needs.

Unless there is a radical increase in this amount in this budget, Educate Together will be forced to cut back its activities and those denied access to multi-denominational education will be forced to go to the courts.

Educate Together requires €500,000 p.a. which will bring its funding up to an equivalent level to the Gaelscoil movement.

It is also demanding equal treatment with Protestant and Catholic patrons of schools in the funding of its Ethical Education Programme.

This claim amounts to €276,000 in the current year. It is difficult to see any statutory basis for this disparity of treatment.

Moving to support Educate Together in this budget round will underline the State’s commitment to cherish all children equally and to prepare properly for the future of Irish society.

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Educate Together’s Proposals in More Detail

Summary of proposals made to the Minister of Education and Science or to the Dail since January 2005

Decisions Sought:

Funding for Multi-denominational Education

• That the Department prioritise support for school providers who operate schools with legal guarantees to provide equality of access and esteem to children - irrespective of their social, cultural or religious backgrounds.

• That the Planning Section of the Department works with providers to ensure that no family in the State has to travel more than 30 minutes in the morning to access a school that guarantees their full human rights.

• That the Department responds to the Recommendation of the United Nations by working with Educate Together to develop a national network of multi-denominational schools.

• That the Department fund the basic salary and establishment costs of maintaining the Educate Together National Office.

Funding Required: €500,000 p.a.

• That the Multi-denominational sector receives an equivalent level of funding for their Ethical Education Curriculum as Protestant and Catholic patrons receive for their Religious Education programmes.

Funding Required: €276,000 p.a.

A New Deal for New Schools

• Changes in legislation to ensure that sites reserved for schools become available on time and at minimal cost to the State.

Saving the State around €15 million p.a.

• Department to source accommodation for new schools once the viability for the school is recognised by the Minister.

• Commitment of Department to enter into a Service Level Agreement with school patrons so that a full range of training and support facilities can be provided for each new school recognised by the Minister.

• New schools must get their grants according to their current number of pupils. Schools taking on extra students must no longer be penalised by only recieving grants on their previous year’s numbers. • All rapidly growing schools must have an Administrative Principal. Funding

Required: €1 million p.a.

A New Deal for Primary Management

• Steamlined administration procedures for National Schools.

• One multi-page application for all grants to be filled in once per year. Saving a mound of red tape in the Department and in all 3,150 schools. Dramatically reducing the stress on Principal Teachers and Boards of Management all over the country.

• Funding for Training programmes for all members of Boards of Management.

• Establishment of qualifications and courses for Board Members.

• Recognised qualifications for School Secretaries.

• Changes in legislation to provide guaranteed time off work and expenses for Board members to attend meetings and courses.

These measures will ensure the future health and vitality of the volunteer management of the primary school system. Without them, the State will be faced with the mounting bill of replacing volunteers with State officials and costly inefficiencies where untrained volunteers fall foul of legal and financial regulations.

Funding Required: €3 million p.a.

Funding for Primary Education

• Ireland still languishes near the bottom of the OECD league table in investment in primary education

• Ireland’s primary classrooms remain some of the most crowded in Europe.

• Ireland’s primary school buildings are largely privately owned and inadequate for modern primary education, lacking sports and music facilities, outreach areas, learning support areas and adequate IT facilities.

• Almost all primary schools in Ireland are forced to fundraise for basic educational needs including insurance, light and heating and educational resources. Fundraising should only be required for extras not necessities.

• Providing €100 extra on the existing capitation grant will empower local management and inject resources directly into the educational process on the ground

Funding Required: €42 million p.a.

Background Information Educate Together

Legal and Constitutional Issues

• Out of the 3,150 National Schools (2003/4) 93% are under Catholic patronage, 6% Protestant (Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist), 2 are Muslim and 1 Jewish. Only 1.2% are multidenominational.

• Census 2002 indicated that all shades of minority opinion are dramatically increasing in Ireland.

• The Education Act 1998, obliges a Board of Management to uphold and to be accountable to the patron for upholding its religious ethos.

• Multi-denominational schools are the fastest growing sector of education in Ireland and have been for the past four years.

• 6 Notifications to apply for new Educate Together schools have been lodged this year including: Letterkenny Wexford Town Leixlip Baldoyle, Dublin 13 Blessington Galway City East

• Educate Together is currently working to meet demand in the following areas: Carrigaline Naas Drogheda Donegal Town Portlaoise Ballina Carlow Tramore Dundalk Ballinteer Edenderry Skibbereen Clonmel Middleton Carrigtowhill Roscommon/Leitrim Greystones Co. Clare (2 locations) Allenwood (Co.Kildare) Dublin Areas Drimnagh Goatstown Tallaght Leopardstown Sandyford

Funding for Educate Together

• Educate Together received €41,033 as a State grant in 2005. This is the same grant as received by the Church of Ireland Board of Education, An Foras Pátrúnachta, Islamic Board of Education and the National Association of Boards of Management in Special Education. However the needs of these organisations are very different. Educate Together is both a patron body and a management organisation. It also must maintain a vigorous development role in order to address escalating demand.

• Educate Together received a further €40,000 as a once off grant in Summer 2005. The total of these grants provides only 20% of the organisation’s current needs and is totally inadequate for an organisation that is being pressed to double its activity to meet public demand.

• Catholic and Protestant patron bodies have full teacher training colleges or religious education departments in such colleges 100% funded by the State. Educate Together receives no funding at all in support of its equivalent programme. (Religious Education is not part of the State primary curriculum and is unregulated by the State)

• Educate Together is the lead supplier of new primary schools in Ireland. 66% of it schools are developing schools in temporary accommodation.

• A Service Provider Model was proposed to the Department of Education and Science in April 2005. This would see the State contracting a patron body such as Educate Together to provide a range of services for new schools for six years. This agreement would cost €77,000 in the year of opening and €17,000 per annum for the next five years of operation.

• Unless Educate Together receives a positive response from the Department in relation to these proposals in the next weeks, it will be forced to curtail the contracts of at least two key staff members and drastically reduce its activities.

• This will be a serious set-back to the cause of diversity and human rights in Ireland and will haunt the reputation of this government for years to come.

Educate Together

• Educate Together is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity. It is fully bound by the Companies Acts to operate in a transparent, legally accountable fashion with published audited financial statements.

• Educate Together’s legal articles oblige it to only operate schools that provide equality of access and esteem to children irrespective of their social cultural or religious backgrounds.

• Educate Together primary schools are National Schools recognised by the Department of Education and Science. • Educate Together schools are bound by all 9 grounds of the Equal Status and Employment Equality Acts.

• Educate Together schools offer a comprehensive programme of ethical education that includes Moral and Spiritual Issues, Justice and Equality, Belief Systems and Ethics and Environment.

• Educate Together schools are legally prohibited from preferring any particular faith but make their facilities available outside school hours to any group of parents who wish to conduct doctrinal instruction classes.

• There are currently 6,400 pupils in Educate Together schools, and the rate of growth is now nearing 1,000 pupils per year.