Additional plans include higher fees for music tuition, alongside reductions in overtime, temporary staff and the use of outside education specialists.

The Education Authority (EA) has also warned that school transport expenses have surged, with taxi costs nearly doubling over the past five years.

Responsible for overseeing the region's schools, the EA is currently managing a budget deficit of approximately £300m and expects the new measures to deliver savings of roughly £30m. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the authority said the sector has been grappling with "growing and increasingly unsustainable budgetary shortfalls for a number of years".

The statement said: "We have been advised that, unlike the position in previous years, additional significant funding allocations are unlikely to be made available to address this shortfall. The Education Authority has therefore regrettably been required to identify a series of significant savings measures. While these measures will inevitably have an adverse impact on services, it is also the case that they can only make a partial contribution to achieving a break-even budget."

The savings measures identified as being deliverable, and now being taken forward by EA, have the potential to realise up to £30m in savings. They will start to take effect from this month. They include: • Implementing savings in home to school transport, including potential renegotiated payments to taxi operators; and exploring options on individual school transport arrangements that are outside EA's legislative and policy obligations. The increasing cost of taxis is of significant concern to EA. The total annual bill for taxi use has more than doubled in five years - growing from £19,428,826 in 2020/2021 to £39,753,169 in 2024/2025.

• A 50p increase in the price of a set school meal for paying pupils (primary, nursery and special schools) with equivalent percentage increases for food items in school cafeterias (post primary schools). These increases will take effect from January 2026. Pupils receiving free school meals will not be impacted. Prices paid for school meals have not increased since 2017/18 and will remain well below the cost of producing a meal.

• Savings impacting the EA's Music Service. The Music Service is a non-statutory service, meaning it is one of the limited areas where there is discretion to make savings without legislative or policy change. Increasing income from charging is the most feasible way to offset the cost of delivering this service and to secure savings in-year.

• Suspending further referrals to external, contracted providers of EOTAS (Education Other Than At School) services.

• Ending some agency contracts and reducing overtime payments across the EA’s corporate workforce.

Sinn Féin MLA Pat Sheehan said: "For years there has been inadequate management and planning by the Education Department and Education Authority (EA).

"Audit Office reports have repeatedly highlighted inefficiencies and waste within the EA and Department of Education for years, yet no action has been taken.

"Now the department and EA are piling further hardship on young people and their families, instead of breaking down barriers to education and giving children the best chance to thrive."