Teachers' unions, students demand more funding
Various teachers' unions and students have joined forces to lobby the Government to address what they say are major deficits in the funding of second level education.
The Post-Primary National Parents' Council, the Union of Secondary Students of Ireland and the ASTI have united to make a pre-budget submission.
They say that Ireland ranks 21st out of 27 OECD countries for second-level education funding and that this must be remedied in the up-coming budget.
Class sizes, school drop-outs and general funding are some other pressing issues they intend to submit to the Government ahead of Budget 2006.
John White from the ASTI says we are funding second-level education "as if we are an extremely poor country".
He said there are huge problems in the system, including the fact that 30,000 students are in classes numbering more than 30, while the mainstreaming of special needs students into ordinary classes is completely under-resourced, and these require urgent improvement.
