Vol. 534 No. 3
299 Mr. Fleming asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will consider taking steps to ensure there is a reduced pupil-teacher ratio as an essential attempt to break the cycle of educational disadvantage for pupils of Scoil Bhríde, Portlaoise, County Laois. [10497/01]
I launched the new programme, Giving Children An Even Break, in January to deal with educational disadvantage in primary schools. Schools participating in the programme are eligible to receive a range of additional supports including teacher posts and financial supports to be targeted at disadvantaged pupils. The additional supports to be provided reflect the level of concentration of pupils from education ally disadvantaged backgrounds in each school invited to participate in the programme.
There are separate urban and rural dimensions to the programme. Urban schools with the highest concentrations of at-risk pupils will be supported where necessary through the three year period through staff allocations to implement a maximum class size of 20:1 in junior classes and 29:1 in senior classes.
Rural schools with the highest concentrations of at-risk pupils will be allocated the services of a teacher or co-ordinator who will work in clusters of four or five schools. Rural schools that could not be clustered with other similar schools will receive financial supports as an alternative to teacher or co-ordinator support.
All schools participating in the programme will also receive financial support for the delivery of targeted in-school and out-of-school actions.
The school referred to by the Deputy is included in the urban dimension of the new programme. The school will receive supplementary grant aid of £6,454 towards providing additional educational supports for the children concerned in respect of the current school year. The school was not considered eligible for additional teaching staff, based on the level of concentration of at-risk pupils in the schools as reflected in the Educational Research Centre survey outcome.
Where schools expressed concern about the outcome of the survey in respect of their school, they were advised to make representations to my Department outlining their circumstances. Schools were informed that these representations would then be referred to the Educational Research Centre for consideration and the circumstances of these schools would then be further considered by my Department.
In accordance with the approach outlined, representations from the school in question have now been forwarded to the Educational Research Centre. As soon as the ERC has examined the representations and reported to my Department, the school will be informed of the outcome.
Question No. 300 answered with Question No. 285.
301 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Education and Science the position regarding the special needs assistants for a school (details supplied) in County Mayo; and if any of the three applicants listed were appointed. [10499/01]
I am pleased to inform the Deputy that all three of the persons to whom he refers were appointed to special needs assistant posts at the school in question with effect from 1 April 2001.
