Cuts affect classroom assistants and support for teachers

The North Eastern Board voted to close Antrim's Massereene College despite a final attempt by parents and governors to apply for integrated status.

Adrian Watson of the UUP and Arthur Templeton subsequently quit.

Eight councillors later resigned from the Belfast board after it voted for a �7m package of cuts.

Tom Hartley of Sinn Fein, who quit the board along with three party colleagues, three SDLP members, and David Brown of the UUP, said he anticipated further cuts in the next two years.

There is not a single person on this board... who is happy Houston McKelvey Board member

"We believe, as a party, that education in Belfast has been cut back to the bone," he said.

Board member Houston McKelvey, the Dean of Belfast, said: "We are helpless in this, absolutely helpless and that is the most frustrating thing about it.

"There is not a single person on this board... who is happy."

The deputy general secretary of the trade union Nipsa, Brian Campfield, said jobs could be lost because of the cuts.

"If the services themselves are cut back then that's clearly going to have an impact on our members' jobs," he said.

Unison said it would ballot its members in the pre-school, nursery, primary and secondary education sectors on industrial action in response to the cuts.

The Belfast board also overwhelmingly passed a vote of no confidence in Education Minister Barry Gardiner.

Members cited the "the impossible financial cuts imposed on the education system and the minister's belligerent manner toward the board".

Ulster Unionist assembly member Fred Cobain had earlier called on party members who sit on the board to resign rather than implement the cutbacks.

Education boards across Northern Ireland have been making a series of cutbacks in an attempt to stem funding shortages.

Special needs

Last week, the North Eastern Education and Library Board voted to push through cuts to school services "under severe duress", as it faces a �6m shortfall in money from the department next year.

On Tuesday, it voted to close Massereene College where pupil numbers had dropped from 460 seven years ago to about 260 today. It was also �250,000 in the red.

The college was temporarily reprieved in February when it was given a month to find ways of increasing the number of pupils, but this was not enough.

Massereene pupils will now be transferred to Parkhall College in the town.

On Monday, the South Eastern Education and Library Board voted through a package of measures "under duress" to save millions of pounds.

They include major cutbacks in services to special needs children as well as cuts in transport, classroom assistants and support for teachers.