Page 13


FEATURE


Combating The Cuts

The UK is facing major cuts to public services as politicians try to make millions of pounds worth of budgetary savings. The NASUWT believes there is an alternative to slashing essential services. Teaching Today takes a look at the impact in Northern Ireland where the NASUWT is leading the fight to protect education, jobs and public services.


£360 million bombshell

The Department of Education Northern Ireland (DENI) has stated that the education budget could be cut by as much as £360 million over the next four years as part of major cutbacks across the public sector.

If implemented, this would equate to a reduction of up to £80m-£90m for each of the next four years. Overall, the current £2 billion budget will shrink to close to £1.6 billion.

This would have a devastating impact on Northern Ireland’s education service and is likely to mean that schools will close, teachers and support staff will be made redundant and class sizes will increase, leading to increased workload for teachers and lower educational standards. Health and safety and pupil attainment will also suffer with a further squeeze on the building of new schools and the backlog of essential repairs and maintenance of existing, and in many cases poor, school buildings remaining unaddressed.


There is an alternative

The NASUWT believes there is an alternative to this regressive and punitive programme of cuts that will damage education in Northern Ireland.

However, the opportunity to work with ministers to devise an effective way forward is being seriously hampered by the political impasse created by politicians in Stormont.

The overdue establishment of the Education and Skills Authority (ESA) has been blocked, as well as the opportunities to make savings from the existing educational administration and the creation of a single employing authority of all education staff.

After several long delays, ESA was due to have come into operation in January. If politicians had put their differences aside and honoured this deadline, progress would have been made on developing a muchneeded blueprint for a sustainable education service.

This would have included moving forward on improvements to teachers’ conditions of service that would allow teachers to focus on teaching and learning.


Campaign launched

The Union has joined the wider trade union movement across Northern Ireland to lead a campaign against the cuts.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has launched a People, Jobs and Services campaign to call for a better, fairer way to tackle the budget deficit that does not devastate the services on which millions of ordinary people depend.

The NASUWT took part in a national lobby at City Hall in Belfast last month, timed to coincide with the European Day of Action organised by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).

The Union will also be involved in a public rally and march through Belfast city centre on Saturday 23 October, which will end with a mass rally at City Hall where those leading the fight against the cuts will outline their argument for an alternative solution.

The Union has also been distributing campaign material to schools and meeting with politicians and education officials within DENI to argue its case against the cuts.


What you can do

• Visit www.nasuwt.org.uk/championingeducation for the latest updates on the NASUWT’s campaign against the cuts and log on to www.ictupeoplejobsandservices.org for more information on the ICTU campaign.
• Write to your MP, MLA and local councillor asking them to endorse the NASUWT’s campaign against the cuts.

(Logo: Championing Education)