The \u20ac9 million allocated in the budget for the purchase of mobile phone pouches for schools has been described by Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon as a scandalous waste of money.<\/p>\n
Deputy Gannon, who is the party\u2019s education spokesperson, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cWith schools around the country struggling to pay their bills or for basic classroom materials due to shortfalls in capitation funding, it beggars belief that the Government should squander millions on phone pouches.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet again, we see the Minister for Education\u2019s pet project taking precedence over more pressing matters, such as the teacher recruitment crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was nothing in yesterday\u2019s budget to address this issue, which is forcing some schools to limit the number of subjects they can teach or take special education teachers away from their core roles to fill staffing gaps.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are plenty of other areas where the \u20ac9 million for phone pouches could be better spent, including increased investment to reduce class sizes in primary schools along with\u00a0the recruitment of additional teachers and SNAs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile a ban on mobile phones in\u00a0schools sounds good in principle, it should not be this Government\u2019s priority when it comes to fixing our education system.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 2, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The \u20ac9 million allocated in the budget for the purchase of mobile phone pouches for schools has been described by Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon as a scandalous waste of money. Deputy Gannon, who is the party\u2019s education spokesperson, said: \u201cWith schools around the country struggling to pay their bills or for basic classroom materials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,316,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-gary-gannon","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n