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A letter to the editor challenges official education spending statistics by highlighting that primary schools in Ireland face significant capitation deficits due to rising operational costs, forcing many to rely on parental contributions and fundraising to cover basic necessities.
Sir, – To say that I was surprised to awake to an Irish Times editorial stating that Ireland was spending more on primary education than on second level would be an understatement .
The reason for my surprise is that the financial reality facing schools is not reflected in the OECD’s statistics. Primary schools currently receive €274 per pupil in capitation funding compared to €406 at second level, a gap of €132 per pupil. For a typical 200-pupil school, that translates to a gap or €26,000 between their income and that of their second-level counterparts.
This year economic consultants Verecon analysed the accounts of 1,521 primary schools and found that 71 per cent ran a capitation deficit in 2024/25. The average school recorded a shortfall of €8,288 on capitation-related income and expenditure rising to €21,000 for large non-Deis Schools. The same analysis found that the cost of running a primary school has increased by 44 per cent since 2009.
Since 2019, heating costs are up 70.8 per cent, water and refuse up 72.3 per cent, and cleaning costs are up 55.7 per cent. The cost-of-living crisis is pressing as hard in schools as on the public. Last year’s increase of €50 per pupil was very welcome but a similar increase is needed if schools are not to sink in a sea of red ink.
Despite the constitutional right to a free primary education schools are forced to go cap in hand to parents to make ends meet. Forty per cent of schools in the sample were forced to rely on voluntary parental contributions to fund basic necessities.
Furthermore, school accounts for 2024/25 show an increase of 14 per cent in fundraised income as schools struggle to pay their bills. Many primary school principals and bemused boards of management will, as I do, struggle to understand how a system in which seven out of 10 schools operate at a deficit can simultaneously be described as one in which primary education is funded more generously than second-level education.
Whatever the answer, the public may be sure that any extra spend on primary detailed by the OECD is not going into the basic running costs of primary schools, which still remain underfunded. The return on investment in both primary and secondary education in Ireland is impressive: we invest less than the average but achieve some of the best results in the developed world. Think what could be achieved with proper funding.
– Yours, etc, SEAMUS MULCONRY, General secretary, Catholic Primary Schools Management Association, Co Kildare.
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