Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

With my colleagues, I would like to endorse the timely motion put forward by our education spokesperson, Deputy Brendan Smith, which deals with just one of the aspects of the education sector, which has suffered so much in the budget the Minister has just introduced. It is particularly important because, if we look at the education system in the context of a child's life cycle, the support a child gets at one stage of his or her development is critical to the success in the next phase of life. Hence, the importance of a child's earliest years in determining how that child will perform at primary school. Likewise, the importance of doing well and being resourced properly at primary level is critical in order to succeed and be equipped to enter second level and maximise a young person's chance of completing the second level cycle. Similarly, the quality of the services and resources available to students when going through second level will be a key determinant in how those young people progress to third level and whether they will be equipped to make that move and fulfil their potential.

What we have seen from the Government in its short time in office is a dangerous erosion of the services so critical to ensuring students fulfil their potential through our education system. More worryingly, the stirrings from the Government show an attitude of indifference to the importance of ancillary supports and to ensuring that those students who are more vulnerable and disadvantaged are served well by our education system and are given a similar chance to make the most of life, as are other students who have been more fortunate in economic background and familial support, for example.

Instead, the Government has at primary level targeted those schools with students in need of a helping hand in its quest to find savings in the education budget. The identifying of DEIS schools to carry the burden of education cuts is discriminatory. It is a real blow to the progress that has been made through improved resourcing of those schools and a real blow to those children going through their doors in regard to ensuring they are well equipped and get the start necessary to go on and do well at second level.

For a Minister who highlighted in bold talk on budget day that he was protecting pupil-teacher ratios, it came as a real shock for hundreds of schools with DEIS categorisation to find out they would be losing 425 teaching posts under the Minister's budget. The pupil-teacher ratios of those students most in need were forced to carry the load for the Government.

At second level, we see the same theme emerge from the Government as its cuts hit at the provision of guidance counselling to students, a measure that would again affect those students who most need the extra help. This is a cut that will hit hardest in those schools and at those students who need the extra assistance and ancillary services the most. Once more, the Minister sold this measure as if it was something one not need be worried about. Again, there was no upfront assessment, as with DEIS, of how this measure would impact on schools. To listen to the presentation of the measure on budget day, one would have been forgiven for thinking that schools were being done a favour. To quote:

At second-level level, guidance provision will be managed by schools from within their standard teacher allocation. In this way, the main teacher allocation can be maintained at 19:1 for schools generally, while schools will have discretion to balance what they allocate for guidance against the competing demands of providing subject choice.

However, when the budget dust settled, the effects of this measure became very clear. What it means in effect is an increase in the pupil-teacher ratio from 19.1 to 19.8.

This leaves many very serious questions which the Minister has failed to address in his comments since the budget. For example, how will we ensure that only those teachers qualified to provide guidance will continue to do so? The Minister is in effect making the necessity to provide counselling and guidance services to students something which is up to school principals to deal with. The necessity for guidance and counselling facilities was not enshrined in legislation by accident. It was put there because it is an essential service for those students who need it. What the Minister has done by removing the ex-quota allocation of hours and guidance resources is to treat it like another subject choice. We now have a situation where, instead of it being clear to principals what are their responsibilities in terms of providing guidance and counselling to students, they will now have to sit down at the start of the year and, at their discretion, deal with the problem of which the Government is absolving itself. The principals are left with the problem of how they ensure that guidance and counselling services can be provided to the students under their care.

This comes at a time when school principals have a much more difficult job than they have ever had before. If the Minister feels, as he said in selling this cut, that guidance and counselling is so important, why is he absolving himself, the Department and the State of the need to ensure the service is actually provided to students and instead foisting the responsibility onto school principals?

What is likely to happen is that much of the progress made in recent years, where postgraduate courses have been established in order to allow guidance teachers to fully qualify as professionals in their area and feed through into the education system, and where students have been able to get professional guidance and counselling in schools, will be rolled back in one fell swoop. As guidance teachers retire or as schools move to recruit new resources, in many cases teachers whose expertise this is not will be asked to provide those guidance services instead. What happens when teachers who are asked to take on this role provide advice which is perhaps not the optimal advice for any student? Who is responsible in that scenario? The measure introduced in this budget will be responsible for many students not getting the type of advice they require in order to make the most of their opportunities.

We have seen in the past the expenses incurred by the State as a result of failing to do its job properly at any one level. This has been particularly significant and obvious in the dropout levels at third level in recent years. In many third level courses, up to 40% of students have dropped out in the first year. The root of that problem goes back in many instances to the fact students were not advised and given the support necessary to help them make a choice that would lead them to take on something suitable to their capabilities and which they would want to pursue. Alongside the fact this will hurt students, therefore, this is also a short-sighted measure in terms of savings to the State. We will see many students making choices which are not optimal for them and wish they will not pursue as a result of not getting the support they needed at the time.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister to revisit this cut and to revise the thrust and theme which emerged in the education line in this budget. In my view and the view of people on the ground in schools at secondary and primary level, this is hitting those who need the support most and who are more vulnerable. As is always the case, those who are starting off and who are more fortunate will have other avenues to find the supports which the State has been providing up to now. Unfortunately, it is those for whom we have the most responsibility, those who need a helping hand, who are being hurt most by this measure. I urge the Minister to reconsider the policy and reverse this cut.

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