Question Time: Education Tuesday 07 October 2014
Paul Givan
enquired about the maintenance backlog in the schools estate, expressing his
concern for the health and safety of students and teachers, during today’s Question
Time to the Education Minister, John O’Dowd. Mr O’Dowd assured that he has “continually
highlighted the need for significant investment in our schools estate to tackle
the high backlog in maintenance” saying that he is “acutely aware of the
importance of ensuring that the schools estate is appropriately maintained to
prevent unacceptable deterioration of the buildings and to ensure that our
young people and teachers have a learning environment that is fit for purpose
and safe for use”. Despite the budget pressures that are being felt across all
Departments, the Minister has ring-fenced some capital budget for facilities
improvement schemes that should assist in improving the condition of the
schools estate.
During the
period for topical questions, the Minister outlined the cuts imposed on the
Education budget as a result of reductions to the block grant from the British
Government. The resource budget for 2011-2015 was cut by £125m as compared with
2011 – a reduction of 13.6%. Feeling this to be untenable the Minister met with
the First Minister and deputy First Minister to impress the impact such a loss
would create. As a result a further £120m of funding was secured. Despite this,
there are still significant financial pressures on the Department which are
curtailing services and preventing expansion, including the employment of vital
front line staff in our classrooms.
Throughout Question
Time the Minister also updated the House on the gender balance of Primary
School teachers, safety on school buses, school starting age, literacy and
numeracy and the single education authority.
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