Samantha Levine
9/18/09
9:54pm
Current Event Three
One Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 in the Irish Times, Sean Flynn, and Education editor wrote the article Education and Finance clash over approach to Budget cuts. This article is written in order to inform its citizens of what is being discussed and going on within education. The Department of Education and the Department of Finance have background documents that they prepared for An Bord Snip which provides an insight into the official mind work on what is spent on within education. These are some background documents which were published not more than ten days ago without any fanfare on the Department of Finance website, and they “… provide a fascinating insight into the thinking of the most senior officials in the Department of Education into the various spending priorities- what could be cut and what should be protected.”
Within these documents one thing that Sean Flynn found striking is the acknowledgement that the Irish education system remains underfunded compared to others, classes are too large in primary schools, there is acceptance that second-level schools are underfunded and often over dependent on voluntary boards of management, and that the Department of Finance is talking about “swingeing” cuts such as a 50 percent reduction in support for fee-paying schools.
There are many main points within the documents, however, within the article the main points identified are: education- how much does it cost and who works there; class size- “securing savings and differences”; securing savings on special needs; cutting school transportation; cutting capitation grants; reducing the number of vocational education committees (VECs); what it costs; and who wins.
The complete documents can be found online at: http://finance.gov.ie/ViewDoc.asp?fn=/home.asp
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2009/0915/1224254539763.html
No comments:
Post a Comment