Budget announcement silent on the most serious issues facing schools
Today’s Budget 2025 announcement contains scant information on how the government intends to address the most serious issues facing schools, ASTI President Donal Cremin said today.
“Today’s announcement is quiet on the big issues in education. This is surprising given recent widespread media coverage of the under-investment in schools and the extent of the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.”
Mr Cremin said while there are commitments contained in today’s announcement regarding school capitation grants and the allocation of new teachers for special needs students, there is no detail of what these commitments will mean for schools.
“We note the announcement of 768 additional special education needs teachers and we expect that these will be thinly spread across the primary and second-level education sectors. While there is a commitment to increasing the capitation grant, there is no detail regarding this. Any increase in the capitation grant for second-level schools will be in the context of Ireland coming in last place out of 34 OECD countries for investment in second-level education as a proportion of country GDP.”
The ASTI said it awaits further details from the Department of Education on how Budget 2025 will impact on the education sector in Ireland.
ENDS
Issued by Gemma Tuffy, Communications Official. Tel: 01/6040172; email: [email protected]
