Ulster Unionist MLA Rosemary Barton has accused the Department of Education of misleading parents as to the real reason why over 60 local schools have had a key element of their funding slashed. The extended school programme helps schools to run breakfast clubs, after-school homework clubs, speech and language services and a number of other extracurricular activities.

Rosemary Barton, a former teacher of over 30 years, said:

“The benefits of school breakfast clubs have long been known – they reduce child hunger by ensuring they start the day off with a healthy meal, they help encourage pupils to come to school on time, it has been proven that they help pupils with concentration and to settle in early lessons, and of course they are also a valuable source of early morning childcare for working parents.

“Whether children are coming from disadvantaged households or not, or whether their parents are working or not, these sort of proactive initiatives help every child that walks through their door and instead of cutting them we should be doing everything we can to further roll out their provision.

“I have spoken to a number of parents in recent days who are understandably angry at the decision to withdraw this key provision from so many local schools. They are rightly asking the question that if the money could be found to continue the scheme for 2017/18, even after the new criteria was in place, why can’t it be found again for the next school year?

“Of course I suspect the real reason is because of the chaos in our local public finances. Last month I revealed that the Education Authority is believed to have overspent its budget by around £20m so I suspect this decision has simply been taken on what saves the biggest amount of money over the shortest period of time, rather than actually considering what is best for our local young people.

“Again this is yet another decision that has been taken in the total absence of any Ministerial or political accountability, even though it will have a direct and immediate impact on every school, child and parent affected.”