Labour’s Planfor Fairness in Education

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Labour’s ambition is to build not just a knowledge economy, but a knowledgesociety. Education is at the heart of a more cohesive, more equal and moresuccessful society, and it will be the engine of sustainable economic growth.Labour is committed to universal education from pre-school to third levelbecause we believe that everyone – regardless of their background or theirfamily’s income – should have an equal chance of realising their full potential.

Over the past three years, education funding has been cut by €1.1 billion.While resources are scarce, Labour believes that even in this recession, wecan and should make progress in education. In our fiscal plan, Labour hasearmarked €88 million per annum to re-invest in a small number of strategiceducational priorities, which reflect Labour’s values. This small investment willcomplement Labour’s reforms, which are focused on improving educationaloutcomes, from child literacy to third level.

LOCAL EDUCATION BOARDS TO MEET LOCAL NEEDS

• Vocational Educational Committees will transition to LocalEducation Boards, charged with managing local educational needs.

• New functions for Local Education Boards will include coordinatingsupport services for schools to get better value for money, for exampleclustered secretarial services, co-ordination of supply teachers andtendering for electricity and heating. The boards will also beresponsible for repairs and maintenance, and will also act as projectmanager for all major school building projects and refurbishmentswithin their areas.

BETTER SCHOOL LEADERSHIP

• School leadership will be reformed to give principals the skills,support and freedom they need for this increasingly complex job.Principals will be given substantial autonomy to manage their school’sresources, including staff, and to enable all schools to reach theirpotential.

• Local Education Boards will undertake many administrativeduties, relating to maintenance, school building projects and humanresources, currently carried out by principals. Labour will implement anumber of reforms to give principals more freedom and responsibility toraise the educational standards in their schools.

• Principals will draw up five year development plans for theirschools and individual teachers with the support of the Inspectorate.They will be enabled to allocate and manage staff with requiredflexibility, with management responsibilities delegated to teachers asschool priorities require.

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• All new principal appointments will be for ten years only, and newprincipals will be required to complete a Master’s degree in educationalmanagement within an agreed timeframe.

MORE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY SCHOOL PATRONAGE

• A time-limited Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the PrimarySector will be established. This national Forum will be open toparticipation from all the stakeholders in the education sector. TheForum will have concise terms of reference and sit for a maximum of12 months.

• Recommendations of the Forum will form the basis of a WhitePaper for consideration and implementation by the Government toensure that our education system can provide a sufficiently diversenumber of schools which cater for all religions and none. As part of thisprocess, parents and the local community should also have a say inthe patronage of existing and future schools, for example by directballot.

• Educate Together will be recognised as a patron at second levelby the Department of Education and Skills.

CURRICULUM AND LEARNING REFORM FOR 21ST CENTURY

• Reform of the Junior and Senior cycle will be progressed, asenvisioned by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. Inparticular, Labour will prioritise the reform of maths and scienceteaching at second level, including making science a compulsoryJunior Cert subject by 2014.

• Costs of curriculum expansion will be reduced by innovativemethods, such as enabling schools to ‘share’ teachers via live webcasts and to use other technological innovations.

• The information communications technology (ICT) infrastructureof schools will be improved. Future investment in ICT willencompass mandatory professional development for teachers toincorporate new technologies into their teaching practice. Labour willalso maximise investment through pooling of ICT procurement.

IMPROVE LITERACY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A GENERATION

• Labour in government will make literacy a national cause anddevelop a national literacy strategy with school-level targets, with amedium-term goal of ensuring that no child leaves an Irish schoolunable to read and write.

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• Every school will be required to have a literacy action plan, withschool level targets that relate to national targets. Responsibility forimproving outcomes will be vested in the principal.

• Whole-school literacy plans will be required to incorporate moreregular and structured feedback to parents about their child’sliteracy standard, as it compares nationally, and as it compares withtheir fellow pupils.

• Each DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) schoolwill have access to an experienced literacy mentor charged withthe professional development of staff.

• DEIS primary schools will be mandated to teach literacy for 120minutes per day; non-DEIS schools will be mandated to teachliteracy for 90 minutes per day. This time includes incorporatingstructured literacy tuition into the teaching of other subjects.

• Pre-service and in-service training in the teaching of literacy willbe improved and increased for all teachers, at primary and secondlevel.

• Labour’s Right to Read campaign will be progressed incooperation with local authorities – for example, more spacioussocial housing, longer opening hours for libraries, homework clubs andsummer camps that improve literacy through sport and games.

IMPROVING EQUITY IN EDUCATION

• Innovative ways of addressing disadvantage will be supported,such as ensuring teenagers at risk of leaving the school system canstay connected through the use of ICT-based distance learning andprojects such as iScoil.

• The cut in the number of psychologists in NEPS will be reversed.Labour will support schools, parents and children with specialeducational needs by ensuring that necessary supports follow a childfrom primary to second level.

• Labour will also reintroduce up to 250 teaching posts of the 1200posts being taken out of the system under the Four Year Plansupported by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and will refocus them onareas where disadvantage is most acute.

UPGRADING OUR EDUCATION INFRASTRUCTURE

• Labour will prioritise school building projects in our revisednational development plan. In cases where schools spend hundredsof thousands of euro renting prefabs, Labour will enable schools tobuild permanent school accommodation instead.

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• The new Local Education Boards will manage and deliver schoolplanning, building and maintenance more efficiently and cost-effectively.

• Local authorities will be required to complete an EducationalImpact Assessment on residential zoning to identify potentialneed for schools. The creation of Shared Educational Campuses willbe a core principle for future development of our educationalinfrastructure. Schools of different ethos and patronage could belocated on a shared campus and utilise common educational facilities,secretarial supports, playing fields and sports facilities.

• New schools will be built to grow with their communities, and toprovide for a more interactive, child-friendly model of education.Labour will develop existing standardised designs for new schools,which will be the blueprint for future greenfield developments.

• The transfer of school infrastructure owned by the 18 religiousorders cited in the Ryan Report will be negotiated at no extra costto the State. The existing patronage and activities of these schools willremain unchanged. We will also ensure that school buildings and landare zoned for educational use, so that they cannot easily be sold andlost to the system.

REFORMING THIRD LEVEL EDUCATION

• Labour believes that the €500 increase in the Student ServicesCharge to €2000 is a step too far for students and their families.We will reverse this increase.

• Third level institutions will be expected to maximise existingfunding, for example through reform of academic contracts.

• Recommendations of the Hunt report on higher education will bereviewed on a case by case basis. Reform of third level should bedriven by the need to improve the learning outcomes of undergraduatedegree students, as well as providing high quality research. It is thisprinciple which will inform Labour’s policy on the future of the third levelsystem.

• A time-limited audit of level 8 qualifications on offer in Irish thirdlevel institutions will be carried out and the learning outcomes forgraduates of these courses will be assessed.

• The remit of the Ombudsman will be extended to third levelinstitutions. This will ensure that students’ interests are protected inthe delivery of third level education.

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• Administration of student grants will be transferred to theDepartment of Social Protection. This will reduce the bureaucracyassociated with student support. We will also reform the means test forthe student grant to ensure that it is equitable and targeted at thosemost in need of assistance.

• A National Strategy for International Education will be devised. This willseek to attract students from a select number of countries to study in Irelandin line with the employment, academic and skills requirements of our overalleconomy and education sector.

• An ‘Education Ireland’ brand will be developed spanning a five yearperiod. The policy will target in particular students from India, China and theMiddle East with advertising, visa policies and quality assurance managedaccordingly.

LIFELONG LEARNING

• Labour will reverse the €200 charge for PLC courses. This is acharge on courses that are a pathway to further education for youngpeople, who might not otherwise continue their studies.

• Responsibility for vocational education and training, including anexpanded apprenticeship programme, will be transferred fromFÁS to further education colleges and the Institutes ofTechnology. To qualify for this transfer of funding from FÁS, furthereducation colleges and Institutes of Technology will be mandated todevelop flexible, high-quality vocational training opportunities forjobseekers, in line with the recommendations of the Expert Group onFuture Skills Needs.

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EDUCATION FIRST

Education is central to the mission of the Labour Party, because Labourbelieves in the equal right of every person – regardless of family backgroundor income – to realise their full potential.

Labour has always had a crusading approach to education. It was Labourthat first proposed free secondary schools. It was a Labour Minister whointroduced the first programmes targeting early educational disadvantage.And it was Labour that abolished third level fees for undergraduates.

These achievements were all realised before Ireland’s economic boom.Investment in education is the most important investment we can make in ourown future. It is central to our longer term economic recovery – not somethingthat can wait for that recovery to happen. Even in this, the most severe andthe most challenging recession our country has ever faced, we must makeprogress in education.

Labour is committed to protecting children’s education from the kinds ofausterity supported by other parties. We believe that children deserve thebest start their country can give them. That starts with a good education, inwarm, safe classrooms, in a school where good leadership is supported.

Labour has included €88m in its budgetary plans to 2014 to support strategicobjectives in education, including improving child literacy for the first time in ageneration. But it is also imperative that we use the resources we alreadyinvest in education more effectively.

Irish schools are long overdue the kind of reforms that can help maximise theinvestment we make in them. For example, schools are at the coalface ofchange in 21st century Irish society, yet their governance structures date fromthe 19th century. School funding is among the most centralised in Europe,with little scope for local management to manage their own budgets. Finally,schools depend on an army of parent-volunteers to run their boards ofmanagement – parents who get limited democratic power over the running ofthe school in return.

We trust schools with one of society’s most important tasks: educating thenext generation. It should follow that we can trust good school management –including parents – to make more decisions about how they use resources inorder to get the best outcomes for children, and the best value for money.

Labour’s plan to improve child literacy stems not only from our belief thatevery single child has the right to read, but also that literacy is what unlocksthe rest of a child’s education. Our investment in education is lost on a childwho has not mastered the basic building blocks of literacy.

Similarly, Labour’s plan to reform the second level curriculum, to incorporatetechnology into teaching practice, and to put standards of teaching andlearning at the heart of our third level policy, is also driven by the belief that

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we have to judge our education system by what our young people get out of it,not just what we put in.

A knowledge economy begins with a knowledge society, not the other wayaround. Labour is committed to putting universal education, from the cradle tothe grave, at the heart of the next government.

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LABOUR’S PLAN FOR FAIRNESS IN EDUCATION

LOCAL EDUCATION BOARDS FOR LOCAL NEEDS

Vocational Education Committees are well positioned to play an expandedsupport service to schools. They have considerable experience in allocatingand managing resources and with project management. Labour proposes tobuild upon the skills of the VECs and transform them into Local EducationBoards (LEBs).

These boards will continue to carry out their existing educational functions,including the patronage of their existing Community and Comprehensiveschools at primary and secondary level, and in adult education. Theirmembership will continue to be elected in a manner similar to the presentVECs.

These reforms will enable significant economies of scale and savings to bemade to the public exchequer and lead to a more efficient public service. It willalso ensure the Department of Education and Skills will no longer beoverwhelmed with competing individual demands from 3200 primary and 740second level schools around the country.

• The provision of support services for schools such as clusteredsecretarial services, co-ordination of supply teachers and tendering forelectricity and heating should be come under the supervision of the 16Local Education Boards for all primary and voluntary secondaryschools within their areas.

• These boards will assume responsibility for the Summer WorksScheme, everyday minor repairs and will also act as project managerfor all major school building projects and refurbishments within theirareas.

• The capitation grant paid to schools will be restructured so that aportion can be allocated to the LEBs for maintenance purposes and theremainder allocated to Boards of Management for educationalmaterials and resources. It will be the decision of each individualschool whether to opt-in to this support system.

SCHOOL LEADERSHIP & RESPONSBILITY

Good schools require one thing in common: good school leadership. Labourwill invest in school leadership to give principals the skills, support andfreedom they need for this increasingly complex job. Principals will be givensubstantial autonomy to manage their school’s resources and to enable allschools to reach their potential.

Many administrative duties, relating to maintenance, school building projectsand human resources, currently carried out by principals should be handedover to the Local Education Boards. In turn, Labour will implement the

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following reforms to give Principals more freedom and responsibility to raisethe educational standards in their schools.

• Principals will, with the support of the Inspectorate, draw up five yeardevelopment plans for their schools and individual teachers. They willbe enabled to allocate and manage staff with required flexibility andmanagement responsibilities will be delegated to teachers as schoolpriorities require.

• All new principal appointments will be for ten years only, and newprincipals will be required to complete a Master’s degree in educationalmanagement.

• Principals will be allowed to prioritise smaller classes for Junior/SeniorInfants where parents and a school decide to do so. Schools will beable to streamline non-classroom teaching roles into a single supportteam.

A SCHOOL SYSTEM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Labour wants to reform our education system for the 21st century so that it ismore democratic, and recognises the diversity of ethos within modern Irishsociety.

• A time-limited Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sectorwill be established. This national Forum will be open to participationfrom all the stakeholders in the education sector. The Forum will haveconcise terms of reference and sit for a maximum of 12 months.

• The Forum will conduct its plenary sessions in public and consider howa transfer of patronage from the dominant Patron to others should becarried out in a democratic and socially responsible manner; how thecurrent system of Boards of Management will be reformed; and toexamine the possibility of one Board of Management for a number ofNational Schools in rural areas.

• The Forum will also develop proposals to ensure all patron bodiessubscribe to a basic charter. This should set out a common position onparticular issues, such as a Freedom of Conscience clause forteachers to teach religion; implement a common Relationship & SexualEducation curriculum and recognise and tackle the prevalence of allforms of bullying in schools.

• Recommendations of the Forum will form the basis of a White Paperfor consideration and implementation by the Government to ensure thatour education system can provide a sufficiently diverse number ofschools which cater for all religions and none. As part of this process,parents and the local community should also have a say in thepatronage of existing and future schools, for example by direct ballot.

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• Educate Together will be recognised as a patron at second level by theDepartment of Education and Skills.

CURRICULUM AND LEARNING REFORM FOR 21ST CENTURY

Irish second level pupils are learning a 20th century curriculum based on rotelearning, while competing in a 21st century labour market that rewardsproblem solving, flexibility, innovation and creativity.

• Reform of the Junior and Senior cycle will be progressed, asenvisioned by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. Inparticular, Labour will prioritise the reform of maths and scienceteaching at second level, including making science a compulsoryJunior Cert subject by 2014.

• Costs of curriculum expansion will be reduced by innovative methods,such as enabling schools to ‘share’ teachers via live web casts and touse other technological innovations.

• The information communications technology (ICT) infrastructure ofschools will be improved. Future investment in ICT will encompassmandatory professional development for teachers to incorporate newtechnologies into their teaching practice. Labour will also maximiseinvestment through pooling of ICT procurement.

MAKE LITERACY A NATIONAL CAUSE

Literacy is the foundation stone on which all learning is built. Labour ingovernment will make literacy a national priority, with a medium-term goal ofensuring that no child leaves an Irish school unable to read and write.

Poor literacy has a permanent scarring effect upon life prospects: youngpeople with poor literacy levels are more likely to be early school leavers, whoin turn are more likely to experience poverty, to work for low pay, to be youngparents and to encounter the criminal justice system. Overall child literacy inIreland has not improved since 1980.

Labour in government will make literacy a national cause and develop anational literacy strategy with school-level targets, with a medium-term goal ofensuring that no child leaves an Irish school unable to read and write. Theapproach will be three-fold: putting literacy policy at the heart of our agendain government; embedding literacy in our communities; and focussing on theteaching of literacy in our classrooms.

• Every school will be required to have a literacy action plan, with schoollevel targets that relate to national targets.

• Responsibility for improving outcomes will be vested in the principal.

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• Whole-school literacy plans will be required to incorporate more regularand structured feedback to parents about their child’s literacy standard,as it compares nationally, and as it compares with their fellow pupils.

• Each DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) school willhave access to an experienced literacy mentor charged with theprofessional development of staff.

• DEIS primary schools will be mandated to teach literacy for 120minutes per day; non-DEIS schools will be mandated to teach literacyfor 90 minutes per day. This time includes incorporating structuredliteracy tuition into the teaching of other subjects.

• At second level, professional development for teachers in DEISschools will be prioritised; it will be required that literacy instruction beintegrated into subject classes.

• Pre-service and in-service training in the teaching of literacy will beimproved and increased for all teachers, and dedicated literacymentors will be provided to work intensively with teachers in the mostdisadvantaged primary schools.

• Labour’s Right to Read campaign will be developed with localauthorities and community supports for literacy will be developed, suchas more spacious social housing, longer opening hours for libraries,homework clubs and summer camps that improve literacy throughsport and games.

IMPROVING EQUITY IN EDUCATION

As part of the Comprehensive Spending Review, Labour will examine howexisting expenditure on educational disadvantage – currently around ¤210mexcluding salaries – can be made more effective.

• Innovative ways of addressing disadvantage will be supported, such asensuring teenagers at risk of leaving the school system can stayconnected through the use of ICT-based distance learning and projectssuch as iScoil.

• The cut in the number of psychologists in NEPS will be reversed.Timely assessments by the National Educational Psychological Serviceare critical in ensuring children with special needs get the supports theyrequire.

• Labour will support schools, parents and children with specialeducational needs by ensuring that necessary supports follow a childfrom primary to second level, and achieving greater integration ofspecial needs-related services.

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• Labour will also reintroduce up to 250 teaching posts of the 1200 postsbeing taken out of the system under the Four Year Plan supported byFianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and will refocus them on areas wheredisadvantage is most acute.

UPGRADING OUR SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE

Even after the boom years, 50,000 children are educated in prefabs, whilemany more spend their school days in sub-standard buildings. The currentbacklog of 1100 school building projects will only be significantly reduced byproviding a dedicated capital budget and more efficient management of theplanning, tendering and construction phases.

• Labour will prioritise school building projects in our capital budget. Incases where schools spend hundreds of thousands of euro rentingprefabs, Labour will enable schools to build permanent schoolaccommodation instead.

• School planning, building and maintenance will be managed anddelivered much more efficiently and cost-effectively by new LocalEducational Boards. Responsibility for delivering school buildings andcentralised purchase of consumables, insurance, school repairs andmaintenance, will also be devolved to Local Education Boards.

• In future, local authorities will be required to complete an EducationalImpact Assessment on residential zoning, to identify potential need forschools. The creation of Shared Educational Campuses should be acore principle for future development of our educational infrastructure.Schools of different ethos and patronage could be located on a sharedcampus and utilise common educational facilities, secretarial supports,playing fields and sports facilities.

• New schools will be built to grow with their communities, and to providefor a more interactive, child-friendly model of education. The LabourParty will develop existing standardised designs for new schools, whichwill be the blueprint for future greenfield developments.

• Labour will promote more collaboration between school managementand local communities to maximise school buildings. School buildingswill be used for night classes, while school sporting facilities could bepaid for through a pay-per-use scheme with local clubs within thecommunity.

• Labour will also negotiate the transfer of school infrastructure currentlyowned by the 18 religious orders cited in the Ryan Report, at no extracost, to the State. The existing patronage and activities of theseschools will remain unchanged. We will also ensure that schoolbuildings and land are zoned for educational use, so that they cannoteasily be sold and lost to the system.

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REFORMING THIRD LEVEL EDUCATION

• The Labour Party abolished third level fees for undergraduates in 1995,and are opposed to their reintroduction. We refuse to go back to thedays when only the relatively wealthy could count on going to thirdlevel, or when a family could only afford to send one of their children tocollege. Labour believes that the €500 increase in the StudentServices Charge is a step too far for students and their families. Wewill reverse this increase.

• Labour will review the recommendations of the Hunt report on highereducation on a case by case basis. Labour supports a vibrant, pluralistthird level sector that offers both high quality research and high qualityundergraduate teaching. Reform of third level should be driven by theneed to improve the learning outcomes of undergraduate degreestudents, as well as providing high quality research. It is this principlewhich will inform Labour’s policy on the future of the third level system.

• A time-limited audit of level 8 qualifications on offer in Irish third levelinstitutions will be carried out and the learning outcomes for graduatesof these courses will be assessed.

• Third level institutions will be expected to maximise their existingfunding, for example through the reform of academic contracts.

• The remit of the Ombudsman will be extended to third level institutions.This will ensure that students’ interests are protected in the delivery ofthird level education.

• Administration of student grants will be transferred to the Departmentof Social Protection. This will reduce the bureaucracy associated withstudent support. We will also reform the means test for the studentgrant to ensure that it is equitable and targeted at those most in needof assistance.

• A National Strategy for International Education will be devised. This will seekto attract students from a select number of countries to study in Ireland in linewith the employment, academic and skills requirements of our overalleconomy and education sector.

• An ‘Education Ireland’ brand will be developed spanning a five year period.The policy will target in particular students from India, China and the MiddleEast with advertising, visa policies and quality assurance managedaccordingly. Postgraduate students should be allowed work in Ireland for upto a year after they complete their studies. High-value research studentsshould be allowed bring their families to Ireland if they are staying for morethan two years.

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• Labour will prioritise the development of a one-stop shop website which canenable international students to learn about Ireland, pick a course and applyfor their visa.

LIFELONG LEARNING

• Labour will reverse the €200 charge for PLC courses. This is a chargeon courses that are a pathway to further education for young people,who might not otherwise continue their studies.

• Responsibility for vocational education and training, including anexpanded apprenticeship programme, will be transferred from FÁS tofurther education colleges and the Institutes of Technology. To qualifyfor this transfer of funding from FÁS, further education colleges andInstitutes of Technology will be mandated to develop flexible, high-quality vocational training opportunities for jobseekers, in line with therecommendations of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs.