The government’s measures to tackle the effects of the economic crisis mean an effective cut of €1.7bn on education spending and will be ‘disastrous’, school and college organisations have told the government.

The economic package includes a freeze in spending on civil service pay from next year, which teaching organisations say will hit agreements to increase teachers’ salaries up to 2011.
The government has also agreed not to make more money available to schools to cope with the expected increase in pupil and student numbers which will scupper plans to invest in smaller classes, teachers say.