 Education Minister Ruane and Executive attack education
The recent budget was a disaster for education despite the amount of restructuring that is being proposed. While many of the decisions being taken are a throwback to previous direct rule administrations some of the worst attacks in recent months have been approved by Caitriona Ruane. These include direct attacks on teachers’ pensions which will indirectly lead to huge compulsory redundancies amongst young teachers. A recent Department of Education publication called “Every school a good school” gives draconian powers to the Education and Skills Authority when it comes into being to sack teachers, sack school governors and close schools. Caitriona Ruane has embraced this and has said that it is “her” school improvement programme.
Going back to the recent strike by classroom assistants, it has now been clearly demonstrated that Ruane lied to classroom assistants in her claim that no classroom assistant would have their pay cut. Check SEELB website under recruitment, and for example: Londonderry PS P1 Classroom Assistant starting at £6.18 per hour and must have an approved childcare qualification. That is a cut of at least 68 pence per hour, or 12%. This has already happened to a group of staff who were employed on long term temporary type contracts at Fleming Fulton School who without notice have had their hourly rate reduced by amounts ranging from 46p to 95p per hour. This will inevitably happen elsewhere and over a period greater numbers of Classroom Assistants will find themselves employed on rates of pay which are considerably lower than those which applied before the undemocratic collective agreement.
Official Department figures now prove that NIPSA was correct in claiming that the majority of unionised classroom assistants were members of NIPSA. This demonstrates the falsehood of the claim by Ruane and the Department that the majority of classroom assistants accepted the restructuring agreement. The facts are that according to the Education Boards own figures for staff paying union dues through their payroll check off facilities NIPSA the union which rejected the deal had 2679 members and the total for the other unions amounted to 1185 members.
Following the Bain Report which put forward proposals to manage the schools estate in Northern Ireland, it was reported that 457 small schools would face closure or merger. The Department has stated that they plan to reduce the teaching workforce by 5,000 in the next six years. On the ground and running with rationalisation proposals are the CCMS and the Catholic Commission for Post Primary Reform to ensure that the interests of Catholic education and faith based schools will be preserved into the future. In Fermanagh every primary and post primary school in both the Catholic and Controlled sector is facing rationalisation. Closures are more likely to affect rural controlled schools that are not as efficiently managed as their Catholic counterparts while the Catholic Church is determined to retain and enlarge its slice of the schools estate. Schools facing closure at the moment include St Gabriel’s in North Belfast, Suffolk Primary on the Blacks Rd and St Comgalls in Larne.
In an unprecedented attack on teachers pensions Caitriona Ruane has approved the stopping in the Teachers Pension Scheme of the entitlement of teachers to purchase added years. Up until now teachers in their 50’s could retire early with years being purchased to their years of service to increase their pension. Many teachers availed of this and it meant that there were few compulsory job losses in the teaching workforce because the cushion of added years allowed for redeployment and recruitment. The removal of added years will mean that fewer teachers will retire early and the closures and amalgamations above will mean compulsory redundancies. The consequence will be that younger teachers will not get jobs in the education sector.  | 
24th February 2008
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