NI Conservatives’ spokesman, Mark Brotherston, has accused the education minister of ‘targeting’ school budgets, in an attempt to redistribute the money elsewhere.
“John O’Dowd has really got to clarify whether he has the welfare of all schools and young people in Northern Ireland at heart, or just the ones which suit Sinn Féin”, Mark challenged. “His department’s plan to strip funding from schools and redistribute it elsewhere, based largely on the take-up of free school meals, is likely to leave four fifths of our primaries worse off.”
“There is an urgent need to tackle underachievement in certain schools, but the way to do that is certainly not to target those which are doing well and managing their budgets properly. The Common Funding Formula is the bluntest of blunt instruments. It is unlikely to tackle the underlying problems which cause educational underachievement and it seems to be inspired by Sinn Féin’s insistence on penalising success. Close work is needed with each school and headmaster where there are problems, rather than simply taking money from some schools and giving it to others.”
“The minister and his predecessors have presided over chaos in the education system, discrimination against grammar schools and a complete failure to support the integrated sector properly. Meanwhile millions of pounds have been wasted in failed projects like the Computer Based Assessment Scheme, despite warnings from teachers that it would not work.”
“John O’Dowd is letting the vast majority of schools, teachers and pupils down. He is running roughshod over the wishes of parents and he is discriminating against certain sectors of the education system. He must be stopped and this latest hare-brained funding scheme has to be buried immediately.”