EVERY primary and secondary school in the county faces the prospect of losing at least one teacher next year if the education cuts put forward by Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe in Budget 2009 come to fruition.

The doomsday predictions were put forward by the county’s opposition TDs at special debates in both the Dáil and the Seanad this week, where the government was chastised for the severe cuts it is proposing to make in the area of education from January 1 next.

Angry teachers say the proposed changes will mean every primary and post-primary school will lose at least one teacher as the increased pupil teacher ratio will force principals to increase class sizes and decrease staff numbers.

Across the county, it is estimated four teachers will be lost at Garbally College in Ballinasloe, while some of the larger national schools in the city, such as Mervue NS could lose up to seven teachers as a result of the cuts.

The cutbacks will also result in country schools such as Claregalway NS having class sizes increased to “unmanageable proportions” with 44 pupils expected to be in the senior infants class and 37 in the junior infants class as a result of the changes.

The projected job losses and figures for classroom sizes have provoked damning criticisms of the present government and of Fianna Fáil in particular who after eleven years in government have failed to make any progress towards reducing class sizes.

Fianna Fáil had promised in 2002 that they would deliver class sizes of no more than 20 – this was increased in the 2007 Programme for Government to 24. Their stated aim in this budget is now to have class sizes of 28.

In addition to this, the forthcoming provisions will see a ...