A Labour Party election
candidate from Buncrana has endorsed the ‘Is your
Child Crowded Out” campaign by national school
teachers.
Labour North East candidate, Siobhan McLaughlin said
her party has “consistently highlighted” the issue
of class size.
“More than 100,000 primary school children and
35,000 second-level are trying to learn in classes
of 30 or more,” said Ms. McLaughlin.
“Despite our wealth, we have the second largest
classes in Europe. How can a teacher possibly
address the individual needs of each child with so
many to teach?” she asked.
She hit out at the FF/PD coalition claiming it had
broken its promise on reducing class size.
She said Labour, if elected to govern in May, would
take the actions needed to bring the number of
children in each class in Irish schools down to EU
norms.
“We will do this by acquiring sites and building
schools and extra classrooms as communities begin to
develop and by training and sanctioning the extra
teachers that will be needed.
“The current Government were half-way through their
term of office before they did anything to make
classes smaller.
Labour has a plan to start this process straight
away if we are elected to Government”, she added. |
