SCHOOLS across the city and county will suffer under the education cuts announced in the budget, which will translate in more pupils and less teachers for schools.
Local politicians will pay the price over the education cuts in the budget according to INTO spokesman Joe McKeown. Over 100 teachers and pupils travelled to Dublin last week to protest outside government buildings.
"It is time for our local counc
illors to make their presence felt on this issue. They will be first in the firing line if this is not resolved by the local elections," Mr McKeown warned.
According to Mr Mc-Keown, John McGuinness, Bobby Aylward and Mary White failed to protect Kilkenny children when they supported the government's decision to cram children into Europe's largest classes. This means that almost every school in Kilkenny city will have larger classes next year. Many rural schools will also suffer.
"This decision will affect schools in two ways," said local INTO spokesman Joe McKeown. "Some schools will lose teachers they already have, while others will not get new teachers they needed. In short, there will be more pupils and fewer teachers."
The local Fianna Fail and Green TDs also voted to abolish the free book grant for needy children. As a result many children will not have the schoolbooks they require in the next school year. "How can our local politicians justify taking schoolbooks away from children at this time?" said Mr McKeown. "A lot of Kilkenny parents will struggle to provide these books. In the past, schools could help them, but not any more."
The INTO campaign will continue with rallies in various parts of the country every Saturday in Novem-ber and a National Rally in Dublin on December 6.
However not all schools will lose teachers as a result of the cutbacks. Principal at Gaelscoil Osrai Sean O hArgain told the Kilkenny People that the school would not be losing a class as a result of the cuts.
"The way things are now, we are fine and we won't be losing any teachers or having to increase class size. However, if we lost students this might change," he said. He added that the library cuts and resource cuts were going to affect them.
"We have a great team of resource teachers and special needs assistants in the school and they will no longer be able to buy new specialised equipment for the pupils," he said.
