Cathal BarryA senior Church figure in education has warned that the financial burden on the country’s secondary schools is at “crisis point”.
Fr Paul Connell of the Joint Managerial Body (JMB) said “the combination of decreasing departmental support and the increasing inability of our parents to financially support us is proving crippling”.
“The question of equalisation of funding between schools is therefore all the more urgent,” he insisted.
Fr Connell, who said cash-strapped schools were now relying on parents to bail them out, made his remarks at the JMB’s 28th Annual Conference in the Hotel Europe, Killarney, Co Kerry.
“Quite simply, without our parents – who themselves are under financial pressure – voluntary schools would not survive. They are now providing over 30% of our funding in voluntary contributions and fundraising. This is something that cannot be allowed to continue,” he warned.
The senior cleric also addressed the issue of teaching resources for schools during his presidential address, calling for cuts to guidance and counselling services and special education needs to be restored.
Turning to issues related to examinations, Fr Connell opined that Leaving Certificate students should know the CAO points required for entry to college courses before they get their results.
He said the five-day wait between the release of the results and the publication of points was “very unfair to students and lead to unnecessary further stress on top of the results themselves”.
Fr Connell also criticised Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan’s decision to push ahead with the Admission to Schools Bill despite what he described as a lack of evidence of discrimination by school managers.
“What we particularly resent is the implication that our schools are involved in some sort of nefarious activity with our admissions and we are not open and inclusive,” he said.
The JMB represents the management of almost 400 voluntary secondary schools – many of them Catholic schools.