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Overall funding for education has already been cut by £70m (2.5%) for the current financial year and the Education Authority has been instructed to identify a further £200m of savings. The solution is future investment in education not the unsubstantiated “£226m” in the Cost of Division paper.
The Department of Education (DE) agrees with CSSC’s analysis of the Transforming Education Paper ‘which it considers to be a flawed and oversimplified analysis’ vastly overinflating the cost of shared education (on average costing DE £4m per annum, not the £95.6m quoted). Read Department of Education NI statement here on the Cost of Division in Northern Ireland paper.
The Controlled Schools’ Support Council (CSSC) supports 547 controlled schools in Northern Ireland which include nursery, primary, secondary, grammar, integrated, special and Irish-medium schools. CSSC has outlined its significant concerns about the calculations, assumptions and methods used in the recently published ‘The Cost of Division in Northern Ireland’ paper. The paper was published as part of the Transforming Education (TE) programme, funded by the Integrated Education Fund.
Mark Baker Chief Executive, CSSC Chief Executive explained:
“At a time when our children and young people are being disadvantaged due to drastic education underfunding in comparison to other parts of the United Kingdom, it is imperative that any analysis of costs and potential savings is evidence based and accurate."
"Too often large memorable numbers are placed in the public domain without time being taken to fully read and challenge the arguments and listen to contrary opinion and evidence."
"Our concern is that the TE Cost of Division paper is being quoted by senior decision makers as definitive and being used to undermine the argument for fair funding for schools in Northern Ireland. The TE paper implies that £226m per year can be saved by eliminating perceived waste due to costs of division. The TE paper, unfortunately, provides headline figures which are becoming part of the public narrative without peer-review or collaborative discussion to substantiate that which is claimed and extending open and constructive dialogue.”
CSSC sets out in its response a commentary on significant elements of the paper, and the analysis on which they are based. Unfortunately, CSSC’s conclusions are that these findings are flawed, undermining their reliability, validity, and credibility.
Some of the cost areas CSSC would like further discussion around include: