INTO secretary retracts comments about Minister for Education

Vivienne Clarke

The general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation John Boyle has retracted comments he made about the Minister for Education when he suggested that she had reneged on a commitment she made earlier this year about post responsibility.

“I suppose I have to retract what I said the previous day, we are getting some post responsibility back. The Minister promised this at Easter. I suggested that she reneged on a promise. It now appears that she didn't, but it looks like it's a very small number,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

Mr Boyle said there had been “a dearth of detail” about education during the budget speeches by Ministers McGrath and Donohoe. The INTO had been “particularly demoralised” about the fact that class sizes were not going to be reduced.

The Budget in 2016 had promised that Ireland would have the “best education system in Europe” by 2026, he said. “We had our own vision that we'd get class sizes down to the European average (20 children) by 2026, and it was like talking to the wall.

“But at least when Norma Foley came along she reduced it three years in a row. She gave signals at her conference she was going to do it again and it didn't happen. And this has resulted in the loss of teachers. And the reason that comes about is because the population of children is decreasing by 100,000 over that ten year period.

"If you keep the same number of teachers, automatically class size comes down. It doesn't actually cost a penny. Now that she hasn't reduced that we're going to lose 200 teaching posts. You could have a seven teacher school in rural Ireland that's going to go back to a six teacher school if they’re down one child. And, you know the chaos that ensues.”

At the end of the day funding remained an issue, particularly in terms of the additional teachers that would support the vulnerable children and the special schools, he said.