Mary Coughlan
Question:12 Miss Coughlan asked the Minister for Education the number of remedial teachers, if any, she will appoint for the academic year 1996-97. [12728/96]
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Remedial Teachers.
Mary Coughlan
Question:232 Miss Coughlan asked the Minister for Education whether a remedial teacher will be appointed to Laghey national school, County Donegal in 1996. [12691/96]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 12 and 232 together. Since my appointment as Minister for Education, I have allocated an additional 241 remedial teachers to the primary sector, bringing the total number of teachers in primary schools to 1,188. Eighty seven per cent of all pupils in primary schools now have access to a remedial teacher. I have also approved the allocation of an additional 98 ex-quota remedial posts to second-level schools since I took office, bringing to 350 the total number of ex-quota posts at second-level.
I consider that the substantial improvements which I have achieved in this area provide practical confirmation of my commitment to the needs of the children in question. However, as Minister for Education I have to consider how best to deploy available resources across a wider range of special needs. I have to determine priorities and try to allocate resources to best effect.
In the current year, I have adopted a particular focus on children who suffer from educational disadvantage and have sought to target resources into this area in an effort to break the cycle of disadvantage. As part of this approach, I recently launched a major new initiative aimed at bringing special targeted assistance to children in selected urban and rural areas who suffer serious educational disadvantage. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that the school to which she refers is among those which were invited to apply for inclusion in this initiative.
I am satisfied that since my appointment as Minister for Education I have achieved substantial advances across the entire spectrum of special needs, including the remedial area. It is my intention to continue this process.
Will the Minister answer the question I tabled? I asked whether she would be appointing remedial teachers this year. I did not want to know the number of remedial teachers appointed in recent years or how successful she has been in fiddling around with the demographic dividend. I asked whether remedial teachers would be appointed this year but since she has not replied to that I assume she will not be appointing remedial teachers this year. Will she explain how she can justify this, given that educational disadvantage encompasses the need for remedial education?
Intervention in education includes remedial reading but it also includes much more. I refer the Deputy to my initiative Breaking the Cycle. I asked the Combat Poverty Agency together with the Educational Research Centre to review the targeting, including the remedial reading service, to ensure that as increasing resources were being put into areas of disadvantage those resources would be used wisely. The Combat Poverty Agency and Education Research Centre published a report which was put into the public arena.
It was quite critical.
It was concerned at the level of disadvantage in very small rural schools. These are very difficult to target, given their size and the distances between schools. I know the Deputy is referring to the Laghey national school, which has an enrolment of 81 pupils and there are other schools in the area with even smaller numbers. When we came to deal with smaller schools, which might have only a handful of pupils, I had a vision of remedial teachers driving around the byroads and high roads, spending more time on the road than in the classroom——
That is hardly a vision.
Maybe it was a nightmare. Due to the concern about the level of disadvantage in rural areas, I have accepted the recommendations of the Combat Poverty Agency to further target our resources, which is a completely new initiative in rural areas. Such schools will qualify on the basis of their size alone. Disadvantage is easier to locate in urban areas than in rural ones.
We are talking about a cluster of small schools which will be selected for special report. Each cluster will have 300 to 350 pupils in groups of schools with fewer than five teachers. We will be looking at co-ordinating teachers, special funding and special training. The criteria will be extended with new headings because there have been difficulties about the criteria for disadvantage in rural communities. The Education Research Centre devised the application form. The scheme has been advertised and schools have been asked to apply.
The schools will be given services to meet the needs of those who prior to this were getting reading lessons but required more rounded resources, which is sometimes quite difficult to provide with very small numbers. I am satisfied that, given the number of remedial teachers we have put into the service and the coming on stream of a new service, we will meet the needs of the children concerned. I take it the Deputy tabled the question on behalf of the pupils whose needs were not being met in very small, dispersed rural communities.
The Minister did not reply to my question. I did not want to know about the disadvantaged status. She spoke about targeting. I want to know how many remedial teachers will be appointed in September 1996. The Minister took this question with Question No. 232 which refers to a school in my constituency which has needed a remedial teacher for ten years for children with special needs. Will the Minister appoint remedial teachers in September?
There is a difficulty because the Deputy defines a remedial teacher as the traditional remedial reading teacher. I see the remedial teacher in a much wider context. I am committed to using the vast bulk of teaching resources to remedy the deficiencies and help the pupils in most need. I have extended the definition of a remedial teacher.
The Minister has not extended the numbers.
The Minister should give a straight answer.
How many remedial teachers will the Minister appoint to the 25 schools? She announced under her new proposals on disadvantage that, as far as I can ascertain, all teachers will be appointed in a remedial capacity.
I cannot yet confirm the number of teachers. The application forms have been sent out. I am disappointed the Deputies do not accept that in meeting areas of educational disadvantage——
The Minister is not meeting them; this is farcical.
The Deputy must let the Minister reply without interruption.
The Minister should not lecture the trade union movement.
The Deputy may shout at me——
The Deputy should not be unruly.
I have 20 years' experience in this area.
And three years in Dáil Éireann.
The Deputy should allow me to share my experience of working in the remedial area. I reassure the House that Breaking the Cycle, the new intervention by the Department of Education for children suffering educational disadvantage and who need remedial help, will meet those needs in a very radical way. I expect schools will be delighted to have, instead of half an hour or an hour from a teacher who travels between schools, a planned intervention programme. There is concern about the level of educational disadvantage——
The vast majority of schools will not be in the scheme, as the Minister knows.
The Deputy has no imagination.
I have a good dose of reality.
I ask for no interruption from either side; the Minister will be allowed to continue without interruption.
Since my term of office began, I have appointed a large number of remedial teachers. I have also targeted resources to schools in areas of educational disadvantage. I am aware of and concerned about rural disadvantage. Perhaps Deputy Coughlan is the only Deputy who can speak about rural disadvantage without having specific information.
We published a position paper six months ago.
I ask Deputy Martin one more time not to disregard the Chair.
It is very difficult and frustrating to have to listen to the Minister.
The Combat Poverty Agency indicated in its report, which was made available to Members, that the level of education disadvantage in this country is around 16 per cent. I reassure schools in the disadvantaged scheme that help will continue to be provided and that there will be a more targeted approach. We expect to break the cycle of disadvantage, rather than just providing a few "smarties" every year. We are asking schools to draw up a plan where, with the Department and the extra resources which have been made available, they will be able to expect that children will not be disadvantaged when they leave school but will have benefited from this scheme.
It is a radical scheme which has been warmly welcomed by those concerned about disadvantage in education. I ask Deputies to allow this scheme to go into operation next September without any disruption. I have committed myself and the education research unit in Drumcondra to monitoring the effects of this scheme so that I, and the Ministers who follow me, will be able to tell this House about the improvements for children who up to this, particularly in rural areas, were lucky to get a couple of hours a week with a remedial reading teacher.
We will now move to Question No. 13.
On a point of order, are we still in priority question time?
We have departed from priority question time.