Saturday, February 07, 2009

Students to suffer as VECs hit with cutbacks

THE country's 33 Vocational Education Committees are set to lose €13.3m as a result of the Budget, a new study has revealed.

The loss is due to changes in staffing levels, a 5pc cut in adult and further education, an 8pc cut in youth grants and a 3pc cut in VECs' payroll.

Irish Vocational Education Association's General secretary Michael Moriarty last night said the cuts would particularly hit the vulnerable and disadvantaged.

The survey claims that more than 80 posts allocated to disadvantaged areas would be lost.

The schools that will lose out were previously classified as disadvantaged but are not included in the DEIS scheme (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Education).

Disadvantaged

DEIS was introduced four years ago and currently caters for 876 primary and post-primary schools at a cost of €80m this year. But 130 other schools previously regarded as disadvantaged have lost that status.

As well as losing posts they will also lose financial supports such as book grants.

Mr Moriarty said that while it is important to focus supports in DEIS schools it was lunacy to assume there were no children from disadvantaged backgrounds in non-DEIS schools.

"These pupils may now be left to fend for themselves in schools which have considerably fewer resources and less capacity to address their needs. In such cases, it will be the survival of the fittest, and my fear is that the vulnerable will fall away in the absence of the range of supports that are confined now to DEIS schools," he added.

He said two factors alone -- where young people lived and their family income -- could tip the balance in favour of advantage or disadvantage.

The vast majority of the 3pc who left school with no qualifications came from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds, Mr Moriarty added.

- John Walshe Education Editor Irish Independent

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