The Sinn Fein minister said she hadn't been given enough money to fund the extended schools project – a programme which provides breakfasts for children from poor families and after school homework clubs.

Ms Ruane has been asked why she was asking for more money while at the same time paying to have every Assembly answer translated into Irish – even to MLAs she knows do not understand the language.

UUP Education Committee member Basil McCrea – who has been approached by concerned head teachers about the cuts – said Ms Ruane should resign as she was "out of her depth" running the department.

"The minister continually refers to her desire to tackle deprived areas, yet despite finding the funds for pet projects such as translating Assembly answers into Irish, we are supposed to believe she cannot find money for poor children to get breakfasts," he said.

"Why did she not ask for more funding at the same time as Michael McGimpsey and Margaret Richie during budget negotiations?"

"The minister is fixated with one thing and one thing only – academic criteria.

"She needs to go now as she is hopelessly out of her depth, unable to understand the complexities of her brief and has failed to honour her commitments to the hard-pressed primary sector."

A Spokesman for the Department of Education said that Ms Ruane did not want to cut funding to the schools from £10 million to £6 million and had written to Finance Minister Peter Robinson asking for more money.

A spokesman for the Department of Finance said Ms Ruane had signed the budget and it was too late now to complain about a lack of money.

He added that it was Ms Ruane's responsibility to make the tough choices about how to spend her budget of almost £2 billion and said it was impossible to give her more money without taking it from elsewhere.