Dr. Michael Redmond:

The Joint Managerial Body, JMB, represents the management authorities of almost 380 voluntary secondary schools and we welcome the invitation from the Oireachtas joint committee to participate in this discussion.

Families and schools inhabit the same world and are not adversaries in the resourcing of back-to-school and other costs. School leaders do not operate in a vacuum and our principals and boards are acutely aware of the pressures on families and ensure they consult with parents on all key issues that affect them.

In our submission to the committee, the JMB asks that we focus on four achievable areas of action. On capitation grants, we know there is no such thing as free education; somebody has to pay for it. In Ireland, the policy is that the State systematically underfunds voluntary secondary schools and consequently, the school community must fill the gap. In 2010, a voluntary secondary school received a capitation grant of €345 per pupil whereas the capitation grant for 2018 is €296, which constitutes a cut of 11% on the 2010 amount. There also has been a raft of other cuts with which schools have had to contend in the past decade, including a 15% reduction in staffing allocation for special needs provision. All in all, the loss in grant-aided income is over 14%.

Added to this loss in revenue, we have seen significant increases in insurance and other costs which do not impact on the other sectors and consequently we urge that the capitation grant be increased substantially in the forthcoming budget. This position is consistently supported by family advocacy organisations and Barnardos, for example, reminds us that no other public service has to subsidise its funding to keep the show on the road. Why should the Department of Education expect schools to be obliged to undertake extensive fundraising activities from parents and staff to fund necessities? Schools should be educational, not fundraising, enterprises.

In addition to the unrestored general reduction in capitation grants over four budgets in recent years, voluntary secondary schools must raise, on average, over 30% of total annual expenditure through fundraising in the local community. This places a huge burden not only on families but also on school management and staff, reducing the time available for all the other responsibilities they must undertake. It is time for the longstanding and indefensible inequity in sectoral funding to be finally resolved.

Professor Emer Smyth’s 2013 ESRI study on governance and funding of voluntary secondary schools in Ireland stated that voluntary secondary schools received just over two thirds of their funding from Government sources while the vast majority of other schools in other sectors received a much higher proportion of funding from the State, with 90% in ETB schools and 93% in community comprehensives.

In the immediate term, the Minister must abolish the basic salary payment made by boards of management to their teachers, which is a unique feature of the voluntary secondary sector. A board of management with 30 teachers pays out almost €17,000 per annum that schools in the other sectors have available to use on the resourcing of teaching and learning. We urge committee members to support this measure.

One of the most significant costs to families relates to textbooks and the JMB has always supported the roll-out of book rental schemes where possible. By far the biggest barrier to setting them up is a lack of seed capital.