The surprise announcement by the Minister for Education and Science, Ms Hanafin, that she may not be able to meet a Government commitment to reduce class size has unleashed a storm of protest across the education sector.
The commitment made in the Programme for Government was hardly over-ambitious. It promised that the average size of classes for under-nines would be 20 pupils for each teacher. The plan was to bring the Republic into line with best practice in other prosperous EU states.
Ms Hanafin is now back-tracking on the original commitment to meet the target by 2007, although she insists the Government still hopes to deliver at some future stage. She has described the original commitment as a "noble aspiration" and said she would be concentrating resources to cope with disadvantaged pupils with serious reading problems.
She also hinted that there may not be sufficient teaching graduates to allow the original commitment to be met, a view strongly disputed by the Irish National Teachers Organisation. The union has produced facts and figures, based on the latest projections for recruitment and retirement numbers, which appear to show that teacher supply would not be a problem.
The key question is whether the Government is willing to give the class size issue the kind of concentrated attention it requires. It should not be a question of a choice between either smaller class sizes for the under-nines or a new commitment to combating disadvantage. Class size and educational disadvantage should be the two most pressing issues for this Minister; both require vastly more resources and a clear Government priority.
New figures, released last week by the Central Statistics Office, underlined the scale of the crisis in relation to class size. Almost 600 pupils were still being taught in classes of 40 or over in the last school year. More than 100,000 were being taught in classes with 30 pupils or more. Our average class size (24 pupils) is higher than Britain or Mexico and it compares very unfavourably with the likes of Iceland and Denmark.
It is to be hoped that the current controversy will strengthen Ms Hanafin's hand as she seeks to secure more funds in the current negotiations on the Estimates. A similar outcry about the dilapidated state of hundreds of primary schools underpinned the position of her predecessor in securing an unprecedented level of funding in last year's Estimates.
Far from back-tracking on commitments already made on class size, the Government should be seeking to build on them. The reality is that nothing less than a quantum leap in funding is required to help finally resolve the issue of class size. Our children and their parents are entitled to classes which provide the best possible environment for learning. They, especially the under-nines, are entitled to the class size which other Europeans take for granted.