School support staff should not be treated as the “meat in the sandwich” during the consultation on a revamp of how schools are funded, says UNISON Northern Ireland head of bargaining and representation Anne Speed.
The consultation on the Common Funding Scheme, currently due to close this Friday (18 October), has asked for input into the scheme which aims to tackle social deprivation among children.
“Unquestionably school funding should be distributed based on social need,” said Ms Speed.
“Children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds should have all the same opportunities as their advantaged peers.
“However, the talk of ‘winners and losers’ during this consultation process is worrying and unreasonable.
“In the last number of days, we have heard several principals from across Northern Ireland say that changes in funding will see the loss of classroom assistants.
“This is simply unacceptable. Our members are not the meat in the sandwich, waiting to be squeezed out of their jobs and into the dole queue.
“We have already seen hundreds of jobs go over the last two to three years. UNISON will not tolerate more redundancies among school support staff and will actively resist them. Our jobs are staying.”
UNISON will be following developments in the Common Funding Scheme closely and will update members accordingly.
