Teaching unions are holding their annual get-togethers this week – with the INTO voting to join campaigns to defend our right to a home at their meeting.
The organisation says children are coming to school hungry and in some cases don’t know where they’ll be sleeping each night.
The INTO’s Gregor Kerr – a teacher in Dublin – says it’s having a long term impact on youngsters’ education.
Meanwhile all pupils will study a foreign language for their Junior Cert by 2021 under ambitious new plans to be announced by the Education Minister.
The strategy also aims to increase by 10 percent the number of Leaving Cert Students studying a foreign language.
Chinese will be introduced as a Leaving Cert subject for the first time, and so-called heritage languages such as Polish, Lithuanian and Portuguese will get a proper curriculum.
