Vol. 498 No. 6
172 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Education and Science if his attention has been drawn to the fact that St. Michael's diocesan school, Trim, County Meath, has 480 pupils and 26 teachers; if he will appoint additional teachers in order that the school can adequately cater for all the needs of the students; and the reason he did not respond to a letter sent to him on this subject on 14 October 1998 (details supplied). [28201/98]
I recently announced a major new funding initiative for the education sector. At second level, a total of 225 new teachers will be appointed. Combined with a very significant change to the manner of dealing with over-quota staffing in secondary schools, these new teachers will enable a move towards the provision of an automatic remedial resource in all schools and home-school-community liaison in all disadvantaged schools.
The new package will be resourced by allocating an additional teaching provision to schools which are within quota and lack the appropriate remedial and home-school provision. In the case of schools with over quota teachers who might otherwise be redeployed, this resource will be utilised in the first instance to meet the remedial and home/school needs of the school.
Following the implementation of the above package some schools will nonetheless have on their staff over quota permanent teachers. In deciding on whether or not these teachers come within the redeployment scheme, a ratio of 18 : 1 will be utilised. The impact of this is that schools will be allowed to retain teachers who might otherwise have been placed on the redeployment panel. This will give schools greater certainty in relation to the utilisation of these permanent teachers pending the occurrence of retirements. This initiative formed part of the budget package to tackle educational disadvantage and I was not in a position to respond to the letter referred to by the Deputy pending finalisation of the package and the implementation arrangements.
173 Mr. N. Ahern asked the Minister for Education and Science the staffing complement of St. Kevin's CBS secondary school, Ballygall Road East, Dublin 11; the reason for the loss of teachers; the calculation of teacher numbers; the number of remedial teachers, career guidance teachers and so on; and if he will make a statement on the matter in relation to the staffing complement for 1999-2000. [28210/98]
The teacher allocation for a secondary school for a particular school year consists of the allocation warranted by the enrolment at the end of the preceding September on the basis of the current pupil teacher ratio, PTR, together with approved ex-quota and concessionary posts.
Enrolments in St. Kevin's CBS secondary school have fallen by approximately 70 pupils in the last two years. The approved teacher allocation for the current year is 25.2 wholetime teacher equivalents made up as follows:
|
Ex-quota posts |
Principal |
1.0 |
|
Remedial |
1.0 |
|
|
Disadvantage |
1.0 |
|
|
Guidance |
0.5 |
|
|
PTR |
19.0 |
|
|
Concessions |
2.7 |
|
|
Total |
25.2 |
