THE Government must use next month’s Budget to boost schools funding after a report showed Ireland’s spend per child was below the EU average, a Sinn Féin general election candidate for Cork North West said.
Nicole Ryan was reacting to last week’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report which showed that Ireland’s spending per primary school student was 8% below the OECD average. It also finds that teachers’ work hours and class sizes exceed the OECD average.
The report found that OECD countries spend on average 1.4% of their GDP on primary education, however Ireland ranks last with a spend of just 1.1%.
Ms Ryan said the report was a damning indictment of Government policy. ‘The failure of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to adequately fund Ireland’s schools has resulted in overcrowded classes, overworked teachers and schools struggling to cover the cost of basics for their pupils,’ she said. ‘Despite schools and parents pleading for a properly funded school system, the Government has failed to invest.
Ms Ryan said that Budget 2025 is an opportunity for the government to invest in our children and ‘wake up to the reality of the pressures facing Ireland’s schools’. Smaller class sizes are vital for all children to reach their educational potential and critically so for those with special educational needs, she said. ‘The crisis in our schools will deepen until the government begin to properly fund the education system.’
