THURSDAY'S NEWS

Hard hitting report urges investment in education services

The Board of Education (Republic of Ireland) has issued a strong call to Government to invest in schools infrastructure.

Proposing the Board’s report, the Very Rev Desmond Harman, Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, acknowledged the funding recently provided for one school – Dunboyne is the first Church of Ireland primary school to be started since the inception of the State – but told of other schools under Protestant management with “a general physical infrastructure which is hindering the effectiveness of teaching”. Dean Harman pointed out that with a growing Protestant population along the east coast, inadequate classroom accommodation now meant an increasing number of Protestant children could not be accommodated.

Dean Harman also highlighted inadequate provision for children with special needs, telling Synod that, despite limitations on resources and staffing levels in the Department, some solution must be found that did not result in the most vulnerable children in the system being penalised. Rev Canon John McCullagh, Education Officer for the Church of Ireland, echoed this sentiment, saying that every child had the right to be treated as a full member of the community, and the Very Rev David Godfrey (Kilmore) spoke of the frustration he had experienced at delays of up to two years in obtaining special needs support.

Proposing the report of the Board of Education (Northern Ireland), Mrs Helen McClenaghan told members that special needs education in Northern Ireland was moving towards developing “learning support centres” in mainstream schools, which was a fresh challenge to teachers as they faced new issues of integrating pupils using these centres. Mrs McClenaghan encouraged the Synod to support the role of the churches in informing the ethos of schools in the controlled sector.

Mrs McClenaghan also addressed the issue of university costs and the difficulty of many families in meeting them. The Board, she reported, wished to urge Government to ensure that students, particularly those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, should neither have to incur huge debts nor work excessive hours to support themselves through university.

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