Fianna Fáil is committing itself to a €1 billion building programme for schools over the next five years. It also promises that all children under nine will be in classes of no more than 20.
The party is promising that the effectiveness of "each major programme" launched by the Department of Education will be evaluated by independent experts. It is also promising a major increase in adult education. "We will ensure that the number of mature students participating in third-level reaches 15 per cent of total enrolment," it says.
The building programme for schools is the focal point of the party's policy document Investing in Education, published yesterday.
The Government has been stung by media reports and an INTO "hit list" which have highlighted the dilapidated state of many schools. Yesterday, the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, said the needs of every school would be surveyed and a programme put in place for every one as part of the building programme.
The Minister said he was happy to publish the list of 850 new schools in need of major capital works - but he declined to say when exactly this would be released.
The Labour Party has repeatedly demanded the publication of the list which, it believes, stands as an indictment of the Government's education record. The issue triggered a major row in the Dáil recently with the Taoiseach also signalling that the list would soon be published.
The Fianna Fáil document dwells at some length on the party's record in education. It says overall spending has doubled to €5.4 billion since 1997 with the recruitment of over 4,000 new teachers and the creation of 20,000 additional places at third level.
A section entitled "Looking Forward" makes several commitments, including:
Every school will receive support for the purchase of literacy tests to assist teachers.
Every learning support teacher will have access each year to at least one week's dedicated training focusing on international developments in literacy development.
Every large school will have an always-on high bandwidth connection.
Significantly, the document makes no commitments in relation to special education, despite the controversy over the Sinnott case.
The pay award to teachers from the benchmarking process would be "better than anticipated", the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, predicted yesterday.
His comments will fuel speculation that teachers are to receive an increase of at least 10 per cent - and possibly much more - when the benchmarking review issues its proposals in June.