September is approaching, and so too is the financial crisis that schools will face.
There’s no doubt that positive strides have been taken. A new pay deal for teaching staff has been agreed, likewise for EA educational support staff.
However, in reality, these issues were just a couple among many financial concerns.
Pay deals may be settled for now, but next year’s settlement still has to be worked towards.
We have seen many critical schemes fall by the wayside. It’s unlikely there will be any going back to the likes of Healthy Happy Minds and Holiday Hunger, such is the financial difficulty facing the EA.
There is no quick fix. A generation of schoolchildren and parents have moved through the system expecting nothing more, and getting even less.
And that remains an enormous concern. No government should sit back and allow financial concerns to be accepted as par for the course.
Many schools across Northern Ireland don’t have the budget to make ends meet, and by the end of the next academic year, there are warnings that more schools than ever will have gone beyond their means in an effort to provide even the basics.
Eight in 10 schools will be facing a budget deficit. At the end of the last school term, around 50% of schools were in the red, up from 40% at the end of March 2023.
At the same time, our schools are still required to provide a three-year budgeting plan, despite only being given an annual budget with which to work.
Mathematically, none of it makes sense.
Teachers will return to the classrooms refreshed from the summer, and free from the background of industrial dispute. They just wish they were coming back to better conditions.
Children only get one chance at education. What they learn in school is vital for their development, and the conditions in which they learn can have a huge influence on how they view society.
If they continually see a society that doesn’t care enough to provide them with the pens and pencils, the toilet roll, the decent meals, the text books they need to enhance their learning, and the teachers who are enthused to do the job, can we really expect them to come out the other end of the system ready and able to affect society for the better?
The Department of Education recognises that “additional resources are required for a sustainable financial framework in education”, adding that there are “unprecedented challenges”.
Schools would beg to differ with regard to financial concerns. Financial problems have been there in education for decades.