Ó neart go neart
From strength to strength
Aim
To raise 2.5 million of non- governmental funds for in order to build quality and capacity of the sector in relation to the physical infrastructure as enhancing teaching and learning skills and opportunities.
Building Quality Provision
The aim of this scheme will be to add £600,000 to the club bank building fund to bring it up to £1million
This 1 million and will allow us to drawn on 10million in loans from the bank. This rolling investment based on the Bank loan scheme should allow us to bring many of our primary schools, which are situated in substandard mobile accommodation into modern state of the art buildings. This 10 million fund scheme should allow us to build up to5 new primary school buildings every two years.
The building quality provision scheme is most attractive because on completion of each scheme, the Department of Education will buy the school at its cost price and also fund any loans costs to the scheme. This in short means each invested pound could be worth as much as £250 over a 10 year period and will be constantly recyled into the next building scheme.
Staff Training and building capacity
The aim of this scheme will initially provide £300,000 on essential extra skills training and capacity building.
As a burgeoning sector Irish Medium Education has a large number of young and highly motivated professionals working within it. It must be also recognised that due to the core language need within the sector, which is not presently fully catered for at 3rd level, there are some staff posts that sometimes can be challenging to fill. These areas pertain to;
1. Irish language and childcare skills in the preschool sector.
The preschool or Naíscoil is the foundation of the sector and it is this stage that most children will first come into contact with the language. In order to work in the preschool sector staff are required a professional childcare qualification and fluency in Irish. Currently there is a shortage of staff that have both of these skills.
The current scheme will provide funds so current and new staff within the sector can access relevant courses in language childcare and in professional development.
2. Specialist skills at post primary level:
It is envisaged that the development of post primary sector along with the expansion in the educational entitlement of the Northern Ireland post primary curriculum, their will be a significant demand for teachers who are fluent speakers of Irish and also have the ability to teach specialist subjects.
It is our intention to provide an annual bursary which will attract the highest quality of skilled people into our sector.
Areas of need include
Science
Technology
Special needs
Maths
Vocational courses
3. Special Needs
Children who attend Irish Medium primary schools represent a cross section of society with children coming from a range of social backgrounds as well as children who have a range of particular abilities. While international research illustrates that immersion education as practised in Irish Medium Schools is an option for all children, currently the sector has a shortage of trained staff with specific special needs training who can work with children of most need. It is our intension to provide an annual bursary which will be directed at building capacity in this area.
Preschool Building and Consolidation Fund
The development trends indicate that 10 Naíscoileanna (Preschools) will be developed within the coming years this fund will be aimed at;
1. Providing accommodation and setup costs for 10 permanent build naíscoileanna at a cost of £100,000 per provision.
2. Construction, setup and initial running costs for 2 post primaries at £250,000
Total costs:
1.5 million.
Overall Campaign: £2.5 million
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