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All The Parties Wanted To Talk About Sharing And Integration – Will They Act?

posted: May 10, 2011 | by

We’ve been told that this election was finally about the real issues – education, health, jobs, transport….although the low turnout suggests the voters are sceptical about the possibility of change. (more…)

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Budget cuts bring an opportunity for social change…

posted: Feb 14, 2011 | by

So how is the money to be spent in schools over the next four years? This week, on the 16th, the consultation period for the Executive’s proposed budget closes and the IEF, like many other stakeholders, will have submitted our response. But responding is difficult when the Department of Education’s plans are fairly opaque; the paper produced by DENI lists cuts, but doesn’t allocate expenditure. This is partly because a proportion of the total available sum is allocated to schools themselves to make these decisions (the aggregated schools budget) making it hard to estimate the true effects of the cuts, even though the minister says she is committed to protecting front-line services. (more…)