Education cuts will increase illiteracy and innumeracy in NW - Dallat

Proposed education cuts will result in many more children in the North West leaving school unable to read or write, it has been claimed.

East Derry MLA John Dallat, who has held teaching positions in both the North and the Republic, said the proposed cuts would see the loss of 300 teachers or 675 classroom assistants many of whom were on the front line of combatting illiteracy and innumeracy.

He added: "This is one of the principal reasons why the gap in education standards is getting increasingly wide.

“Illiteracy and innumeracy has been widespread in working-class estates across the North where paramilitaries have preyed on the low self-esteem of many children and recruited them into their evil activities of murder, drugs and robbery.

"One of the success stories of early intervention has been the provision of funding for Pre-School Education which helped to break the cycle of literacy and numeracy problems

“In recent times 250,000 people between the ages of 16 and 64 could not fill in an application form or read basic instructions on a medicine package. It defies belief that any budget relating to education would threaten to derail attempts to decrease this number for future generations."

Mr Dallat concluded: "Cutting jobs in education will lead to bigger class sizes, more combined classes, put further pressure on schools and have an adverse  effect  on  the  quality  learning. There is too much at stake for this madness is to proceed.”