CROKE PARK AGREEMENT:FURTHER CUTS in the number of special needs assistants (SNAs) are signalled in the new plan for education.
The Department of Education document – prepared as part of the Croke Park deal – says the 90,000 people working in the sector face dramatic changes to improve its overall efficiency, flexibility and capability.
But the document stops short of giving details of cuts in the education sector or the likely savings which will accrue from the new measures.
On special needs, the plans says a report to identify “perceived deficiencies” in systems will be published shortly. The report is being compiled by school management bodies, employer representatives and the department. The plan also says that a notice will issue to schools shortly, outlining new rules agreed as part of the Croke Park agreement.
This will require the more flexible deployment of close to 10,000 SNAs within schools to “respond to work demands and to cover absences by SNA colleagues”. It also says “where work demands arise during non-instruction days, school management will continue to have discretion to deploy staff to appropriate SNA duties”.
Last year, the department moved to abolish more than 120 special needs classes for more than 500 pupils.
Cuts in the number of assistants have long been targeted by the department as it believes there are hundreds of surplus SNA posts in the system, a view contradicted by trade union representatives.
But any further cuts to assistant numbers is bound to trigger political controversy.
The plan says the education sector faces four essential changes:
- Greater expectation from Government and the community;
- Increased student demand because of demographic factors;
- The demand for new and different skills and qualifications and
- the introduction of greater flexibility to the system and the removal of rigidities associated with work practices;
On higher education, the plan highlights the need for new academic workload management systems. But it gives no details of how these systems might work.
The plan does not provide detail of how the additional hours per week required under the agreement from teachers and academic staff in the institutes of technology will be managed. It says it will detail this in forthcoming discussions with the teacher unions.
The agreement promises no pay cuts and no forced redundancies for public servants until 2014 in exchange for modernisation and reform measures.