A TOTAL of 450 new teachers will be appointed as part of a twoyear £57 million spending package to deal with educational disadvantage announced by the Minister for Education and Science, Mr Martin, yesterday.
He said it was the "largest ever concentrated programme" to tackle the problem.
Apart from nearly £14 million for new teachers, the package includes over £12 million for children with special needs - although £8 million of this had already been announced; £6.9 million for helping mature, disadvantaged and failing students at third level; and £3.2 million for adult literacy.
The £27 million the programme will cost in the coming year is made up of £19 million from the Budget, with the balance coming from unallocated spending from the Department of Education Estimate.
The new teachers will be evenly divided between primary and secondary schools, and will be in place by next September. Mr Martin said their deployment would be aimed at reaching two targets: every school to have a remedial teaching service available to it, and every disadvantaged school to have a homeschool-community liaison service.
Around 16 per cent of schools are disadvantaged: 318 primary and 211 second-level. The aim will be to employ new or redeployed teachers to provide homeschool-liaison services to the 126 disadvantaged second-level schools who currently do not have access to them.
The £6.9 million on third-level education will have three elements: £1.5 million will go towards tackling the problem of students dropping out of courses, which is believed to be particularly prevalent among students from disadvantaged backgrounds; £3 million will go to promoting access to third-level colleges by such students; and £2.4 million will fund an extension of the maintenance grants scheme, so that all mature students will qualify for the same grants as their younger colleagues.
There have been strong complaints, particularly from women in the Dublin area, at the discriminatory nature of the previous scheme, which penalised mature students living within 15 miles of their place of study.
Apart from the 225 extra teachers at second level, the programme will provide for the redeployment of around 100 more teachers, currently surplus to requirements because of falling student numbers, towards remedial and homeschool liaison services. Another 70 will be freed for other duties in schools by introducing a slightly lower pupil-teacher "retention ratio".
Fine Gael's education spokesman, Mr Richard Bruton, said the new teachers who would "become available to primary schools next September following this announcement will be only half that made available in 1997, as a result of declining pupil numbers".
The Irish Vocational Education Association said the package represented "a very significant commitment to tackle the scandal of disadvantage which has become more acute in this era of the Celtic Tiger".
The Union of Students in Ireland's education officer, Mr Darren McCallig, welcomed the removal of the mature student anomaly in the grants system, pointing out that this would mean an increase from a "disgraceful" £18.33 per week to the present, still inadequate, £45.90 per week. The National Youth Council said the increased funding to the psychological service was a progressive "first step".
The Teachers' Union of Ireland general secretary, Mr Jim Dorney, expressed disappointment that "inadequate resources are being allocated". "The 225 extra second-level teachers," he said, "will not provide a remedial service to every school, never mind an adequate guidance counselling service."
The ASTI general secretary, Mr Charlie Lennon, welcomed the extra teachers and the decision to allow schools to retain teachers who would otherwise be moved as enrolments decline. "However we would reiterate our view that the system of designating schools as disadvantaged, rather than recognising that practically every school in the country houses disadvantaged students, needs to be reassessed," he said.