Vol. 415 No. 9
94 Mr. Spring asked the Minister for Education the steps he is taking to deal with the situation arising from the response which his Department has received to the circular letter seeking information on the number of disadvantaged students at the Tralee community college; and if he will outline the specific action he proposes to take to remedy the severe disadvantage shown.
I assume the Deputy is referring to the questionnaire which was issued to all schools two years ago in connection with the allocation of teaching posts to post-primary schools in disadvantaged areas.
Over the past two years a total of 120 teaching posts have been allocated to post-primary schools under this scheme. Schools were ranked in order of merit on the basis of agreed criteria and the available posts were allocated to schools accordingly. Tralee community college did not rank sufficiently highly on the list for the allocation of a post.
There are no proposals to allocate posts under a similar scheme in the current year. However, it is open to the school authorities to assign a teacher from within the authorised teacher allocation to home/school liaison duties or other duties of this kind linked to the needs of pupils from disadvantaged homes. I am satisfied that the teacher allocation to Tralee Vocational Education Committee affords ample scope to cater for disadvantaged children.
