TEACHING unions have warned that proposals to cut education funding if there is no power-sharing deal will lead to redundancies and possible school closures.
Secretary of State James Brokenshire has indicated that a Stormont budget he would impose would slash 2.5% from the education pot - a loss of around £50 million.
A new deadline of June 29 has been set for agreement to form an executive, with parties due to meet tomorrow to discuss whether to suspend talks until after the Westminster election on June 8.
Mark McTaggart, from the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO), said the delay "is going to cause an unacceptable lack of clarity".
He told The Irish News: "Schools will possibly have to wait until June 29 until they know what budget they will have for next year.
"We also have to take into account inflation, so we could be talking about a cut of five to six per cent to schools' budgets.
"Schools will not know what resources they will have available to them come September 1 and we have teachers who are worrying about whether they will have a job.
"It makes it impossible for schools to make a one-year budget never mind a three-year budget which is requested by the education authorities."
Mr McTaggart added that if the proposed cut goes ahead, "there is the danger of mid-year redundancies".
A spokesman for the National Association of Schoolmasters and Women Teachers (NASUWT) said Mr Brokenshire's indicative budget "should serve as a wake-up call to our political leaders".
"Schools are already under enormous pressure from the current deficit in spending, and were told by former minister Peter Weir in January that we needed £240 million to maintain current spending levels over the next three years.
"If this cut happens a strained system would be made considerably worse. Schools will close. Services to young people will be withdrawn.
"Teachers and support staff will lose their jobs, and ultimately the losers in all of this will be our young people."
Mr Brokenshire said he had taken advice from senior civil servants before revealing his draft budget, which proposes increases for health and welfare support as well as £42m not yet allocated to departments.
As the previous executive did not produce a budget for the current financial year, senior civil servant David Sterling, the permanent secretary at the Department of Finance, took control of the north's finances following the collapse of power-sharing.
