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The Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn T.D. has protected frontline education services and secured additional teachers and supports for special education in Budget 2014.

As well as maintaining the existing pupil-teacher ratios in free schools for the third successive year, an additional 1,400 teachers will be recruited in primary and post-primary schools in 2014. This will include providing more teachers to meet rising pupil numbers as well as additional Resource Teachers for children with special educational needs.

Spending on the DEIS scheme has been ring-fenced in this Budget, and there are no changes to either the overall staffing or funding of our disadvantaged schools.

The Minister has also protected the €1.3 billion available annually to provide supports for children with special educational needs.

The Department of Education and Skills is to receive €5 million from the proceeds of the National Lottery Licence transaction to allow primary schools to invest in book rental schemes to reduce the cost burden on parents with young children. This measure will deliver a €15 million investment to support the establishment of book rental schemes over the next three years in all primary schools that do not currently operate them. These schemes can result in savings of up to 80 per cent of the cost of school books for parents.

These funds will be paid to schools in the form of a seed capital grant, with DEIS schools receiving €150 per child and €100 per child in non-DEIS schools, to set up book rental schemes. The €15 million already provided to schools that currently operate these schemes will continue. This funding should be used to maintain an updated stock of school books.

Minister Quinn has also protected the maintenance grants awarded to qualifying students in third level institutions, with no changes to the student grant scheme as a result of the Budget.

And in a further measure to support young adults a minimum of 2,000 training places will be ring-fenced for under-25s at a cost of €6 million as part of a €46 million Youth Guarantee being implemented across Government Departments. These places will be provided under a follow-up to the successful Momentum programme that operated in 2013.

“As we come to the end of Ireland’s bailout, I firmly believe that protecting the education system is one of the best ways to invest in our economic recovery. Education is no different to other areas in needing to contribute to the stabilisation of the nation’s finances and this year, the Government is making it very clear that education is important to us” Minister Quinn said.

The DES current expenditure budget for 2014 is €8,219 million, including €362 million allocation for the National Training Fund.

In Budget 2014 the Department was required to secure savings of €44 million to meet the ceiling set in the Comprehensive Expenditure Review 2012-14. In addition, the Department faced continued liabilities due to the Redress Scheme (current estimate of €42 million for 2014), and a further €33 million is required to support the education of children with special educational needs in schools.

The Department has been able to identify sufficient expenditure savings to allow the Minister to protect frontline education services in this Budget, including protecting class sizes. Significant savings materialised recently particularly in relation to superannuation expenditure. This has reduced the amount the Department is required to find through policy measures to €33 million.

“Thankfully, the number of teachers who retired at the end of August was considerably lower than had been anticipated” Minister Quinn said. “This has allowed for a significant reduction in the estimated 2014 cost of the Department’s superannuation scheme, which funds lump sum and pension payments to teachers. This has helped to alleviate the impact of Budget 2014 on primary and post primary schools”.

Minister Quinn is satisfied that Higher Education Institutions have significant amounts of cash at their disposal with up to €450 million available to them. Last year the allocation to third-level institutions was reduced by €25 million to be restored in the current year. As a result of Budget 2014 these funds will not now be restored until 2015. The Higher Education Institutions are expected to continue to deliver the same level of services by more prudent management of their existing cash balances as they are doing at present.

In addition to the increased investment in staffing our schools, there are a number of other measures that also underline the Government’s determination to invest in our recovery.

Minister Quinn is committed to ensuring that every child leaves school with high levels of Literacy and Numeracy. To support this, almost €9 million has been included in the 2014 allocation to continue rolling out the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy.

Minister Quinn is implementing a major reform of the Junior Cycle. Some €1.5 million has already been spent on preparing for the introduction of the new English syllabus from September 2014 with a total of €4.8 million being provided in 2014. This investment will allow up to 7,000 school personnel, including principals and teachers of English in our schools, to receive training for the reformed Junior Cycle over the coming year.

The roll-out of high-speed broadband to all second-level schools is continuing. Some 478 schools will be fully connected by the end of this year, and the remaining 150 schools will be connected before the end of 2014. This is being provided to schools at no cost to them. It is funded by an investment of €40 million by the Department of Education and Skills, and the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources between 2011 and 2015.

ENDS

Note for Editors:

Department of Education and Skills - Main Estimate Features

Gross Allocation 2014

€m

Exchequer allocation for gross current expenditure 7,857

Exchequer allocation for gross capital expenditure 540

Allocation for National Training Fund 362

Total overall allocation 8,759

The expenditure allocation will provide €5 million to fund an overall 3 year investment of €15 million to support the further extension of book rental schemes to cover all primary schools. €9 million of funding is being provided to support rollout in 2014 of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, while €4.8 million will be provided for Junior Cycle reform. All second level schools will have high-speed broadband connectivity before the end of 2014.

SCHOOLS

DEIS schools

Schools participating in DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) (DEIS) are protected in this Budget. There have been no changes to DEIS Programme teacher allocation ratios or DEIS grants to schools as a result of this Budget.

Special Education

Priority will continue to be accorded to special education. Funding for such provision of some €1.3 billion is being maintained in 2014. This includes a further €33 million to fund the education of children with special education needs in schools. The allocation for special needs represents in excess of 15% of the gross overall current allocation for education and training.

BUDGET MEASURES

The measures listed below will secure net current expenditure savings in 2014 of €33 million. A further €11 million will be secured by way of estimating savings across the Education and Skills Vote.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Reduce allocation to higher education institutions (HEIs) in 2013

In Budget 2013 the funding allocation to the HEIs was reduced by €25 million, with the institutions expected to manage this reduction and deliver the same level of student services through the use of existing cash reserves held by them. As a result of Budget 2014 this reduction of €25 million will be continued for a further year, again taking account of the cash balances held by HEIs.

FURTHER EDUCATION & TRAINING

Ending concurrent payments to recipients of certain social protection payments who take up FAS and Youthreach courses.

In some instances participants on FAS training courses can retain social protection payments paid by the Department of Social Protection, as well as receiving their €188 FAS and Youthreach training allowance. These concurrent payments, which are not payable to participants in Community Employment or VTOS schemes, are now being ended for new entrants to FAS and Youthreach training courses. This measure will yield €5 million in savings in 2014.

Abolition of €20 long-term unemployment bonus paid to FAS, VTOS and Youthreach participants.

The payment of this allowance goes back to a time of full employment when there was a concern to incentivise the long-term unemployed to engage with labour market activation efforts. This payment will end for new entrants and will save €2.1 million in 2014 and €6.7 million in a full year. However, course participants will continue to receive meal and travel allowances.

FAS apprentices to pay a pro-rata Student Contribution proportionate to the time they spend in Institutes of Technology

Apprentices attend IOTs for two ten-week periods during their four-year apprenticeships. The pro-rata student contribution (currently €540) in respect of each period spent in the IOTs, paid up to now by the Exchequer, will from 2014 be paid by the apprentices themselves, yielding an annual Exchequer saving of €1.6 million.

Alignment of certain Further Education and Training Allowances

Changes being introduced by the Department of Social Protection mean that new claimants of Jobseekers Allowance aged 25 years will from 2014 receive a reduced maximum payment of €144 per week, increased to €160 where a person participates in certain education and training programmes. To align social protection payments with payments made to participants in further education and training, such persons who enrol in VTOS, Youthreach and FAS training schemes will from 2014 also receive this €160 rate.

TEACHER NUMBERS

Provision is made in the 2014 estimates for increases in teacher numbers due to demographics, as well as for increases in resource teacher numbers to maintain individual resource teacher allocations at existing levels. The table below shows the projected impact next year of these increases in numbers, net of reductions for the application of earlier budget measures. The net overall increase in teaching posts for the 2014/15 school year compared to the current school year is estimated to be of the order of 1,395 posts, as shown in the above table. This represents an estimated net increase of about 2.2% on overall teacher numbers for the 2014/15 school year compared to the current 2013/14 school year.

Estimated position on Teacher numbers in schools for 2014/15 school year

Primary sector (posts) Second level sector (posts) Total posts

Target savings from previous budget measures (small schools and language support) -155 0 -155

Estimated additional posts to cater for increased demographics and provision for additional resource teachers +1,050 +500 +1,550

Estimated Net change in overall number of posts +895 +500 +1,395

PREVIOUS BUDGET MEASURES IMPACTING IN 2014

The allocation for 2014 also takes account of savings deriving from savings measures announced in previous Budgets. These measures are summarised below.

Teachers

Teacher allocation measures introduced in earlier Budgets will also impact on teacher numbers in schools in 2014. These include the changes in Budget 2012 announced to the staffing schedules for smaller primary schools with up to 4 teachers. This change will have a target yield of approximately 75 posts in 2014. A further 80 primary posts will be yielded on foot of the Budget 2011 decision to reduce language support posts over a 4-year period.

Student contribution

As signalled in Budget 2013 the student contribution, at €2,500 for the 2013/14 academic year will rise by a further €250 in each of the 2014/15 and 2015/16 academic years, to a maximum of €3,000. This will raise €18.5 million next year and €37 million in 2015. All students who are eligible for student grants will continue to have the student contribution paid on their behalf. At present two out of five students are in receipt of some form of student grant. The rates of maintenance grants are being protected in this Budget.

Capitation grants

On foot of school funding measures introduced in Budget 2012, funding for capitation and related grants to primary and post-primary schools in 2014 will be reduced by 1%. The overall saving will be achieved by a reduction in the standard capitation rates, with other related grant rates remaining unchanged. The new standard mainstream capitation rates in 2014 will be €173 for primary and €301 for post-primary.

Capitation rates in Youthreach, VTOS and PLC colleges are also being reduced by 1%, while higher education institutions will see reductions in core-pay and non-pay funding of 1%.

CAPITAL EXPENDITURE ALLOCATION

The capital allocation of €540 million will be principally deployed in the ongoing delivery of the Department’s five year school building programme (2012 to 2016), which involves 275 major school building projects and an additional 80,000 school places to meet demographic demands. The 2014 allocation also includes an additional €65 million to meet the costs of projects announced under Government’s stimulus initiatives of July 2012 and June 2013, including upfront enabling works for the development of the new DIT campus at Grangegorman and 28 additional school building projects.