In this motion for the Adjournment I have sought to have a discussion on the question and problem of overcrowding of Scoil Iosagáin National School in Aughavanagh Road, Dublin 12.
Very briefly the background to this problem is related to the fact that the principal of the school, Brother Keegan, has been in correspondence with the Minister for Education for some time now. The problem of overcrowding in the school continues. To date the requests of Brother Keegan, Principal, have not been acceded to.
Scoil Iosagáin was one of the first schools to be designated as serving a disadvantaged area and that took place in 1986. At that stage there were 246 students on the rolls in Scoil Iosagáin. The school now has 275 pupils, which warrants a principal and eight assistants. That is what it has at present. In other words, the school now is getting no benefit at all from the fact that it is designated a disadvantaged school in a disadvantaged area. This raises the question of what is the yardstick for disadvantaged areas now? Has it changed? It also raises the anomaly whereby in some disadvantaged areas, at least in one, the pupil-teacher ratio is as low as 8.8. In fact, in a survey of five Christian Brothers schools in the south Dublin area the pupil-teacher ratio there varies from 22 to as low as 13.2. The actual class sizes, if you average the whole thing out in terms of teacher to student, works out at 35 in Scoil Iosagáin in Aughavanagh Road, which is located in a disadvantaged area.
There are many problems in this area. There is a specific extra one in relation to this school and that relates to the fact that the classrooms all have a floor area of 500 square feet. As I understand the regulations of the Department of Education, 15 square feet are reckoned to be necessary to accommodate a pupil in a classroom. When you work out the figures that would mean that in no classroom in Scoil Iosagáin in Aughavanagh Road should there be more than 33 pupils at any stage. The present situation in the school is simply this. There are 37 pupils in three classrooms. There are 36 pupils in three classrooms. There is one classroom which has 33 pupils, which is bang on what is permissible, and there is one classroom in which there are 32 pupils. That is what happens on a good day when everything is working properly; but you have got to bear in mind that from time to time teachers become sick or for some other reason they are unable to be present. In those situations you can find 42 or more pupils located in one classroom in this school which should not have more than 33 pupils in any one class.
How can teachers be expected to cope in that type of situation? How can teachers be expected to cope in that sort of an environment in the classroom when many of these children are coming from what is termed a disadvantaged area? On bad days, when a teacher happens to be away from one reason or another, the pupils simply have not enough room to sit down in this school because of the overcrowding. The overcrowding problem creates a whole series of knock-on difficulties. It creates problems in relation to health. It creates problems in relation to the spread of infectious diseases. In a situation where a flu epidemic is taking place, in the sort of environment which exists in Scoil Iosagáin you can anticipate that the flu virus will spread a good deal more rapidly than would be the situation if proper accommodation was available.
What happens if a fire breaks out in those circumstances? I would suggest that the risk to the pupils, if by any misfortune a fire should happen, is considerably heightened. There is the question of the comfort and convenience both of the teachers and the students. There is the question of how the teacher can be expected to maintain discipline in that sort of an environment, again bearing in mind the fact that this has been designated a disadvantaged area since 1986.
I have been in the school and I have been in the classroom and have had an opportunity to visit the school and see it myself. I must say that I believe that the teachers and the pupils in that school are carrying an intolerable burden. I believe that it should be rectified as a matter of urgency.
In the area itself there are many problems. There are a number of difficult children attending that school. There are considerable problems relating to discipline despite the very best efforts of a very highly motivated and very dedicated teaching staff. The question arises as to what is to be done with students who have a consistent record of poor discipline. What are the options available to the school in those circumstances? Is the school to expel them all? If the school does expel or suspend them, what is going to happen them? They were, as it were, turfed out onto the street with basically nowhere to go. In fact in many ways you are simply making a social problem in the area worse because of what these type of children are likely to get up to if they are suspended.
The teachers in the school are experiencing extremely great stress. Some of them have resorted to looking for career breaks. There are difficulties in relation to involving the parents. It would be considered desirable in these circumstances that a home-school liaison officer would be appointed. It is being recommended that such appointments be made in this area. Nothing has been done. There has been a big turnover of teachers in the school. One teacher resigned as late as last Christmas. It is fair to say that one of the reasons why the teacher resigned relates to the stressful circumstances which exist in the school.
There are great problems in the school in relation to attempts to get substitute teachers. I understand that substitute teachers could not be found in that area in the last month or so. There is another problem in relation to substitute teachers and that is the fact that, when they are obtained for the school, they leave very rapidly. The circumstances and the environment in which they find themselves is so stressful that quite simply they prefer to go back on to the dole or to go back on to the building sites which must be most unacceptable to somebody who has gone through the whole process of being educated to the point that they have qualified to become a teacher.
The number of staff in the school is the same now as it was in 1986 despite the fact that the number of pupils has increased by 38. The advanced bookings for enrolment next year indicate that these figures will in actual fact get worse. The advanced bookings indicate that there will be even more students on the rolls next year than there are at present. That creates a dreadful dilemma for the principal and for the management of the school. What are they to do with these people? Are they to take them in and compound the problem or are they to refuse to take them in and create another major social problem for these children and their parents?
The other disturbing point about the whole issue is that there are much lower pupil-teacher ratios in schools in many non-disadvantaged areas. Today I was given an example of a school in the west of Ireland where you have a pupil-teacher ratio of 4:1. Indeed, let me hasten to say that I do not begrudge this school its good luck, nor do I begrudge the teacher or the students their good luck, but it is a fairly sharp contrast with the realities that exist in Aughavanagh Road. In many schools the pupil-teacher ratio can be as low as 8:1 or 9:1.
The national average in relation to the pupil-teacher ratio, I understand, is 27:1. Here, as I have said already, it is 35:1. The teachers have experienced great problems in relation to being abused by angry parents, being abused by elder brothers of children in the school, being abused by children in the classroom and they have been openly insulted. They have had problems relating to the fact that missiles were thrown at them. There is a very serious discipline problem in this school. That problem is very directly related to the pupil-teacher ratio.
The teachers are frustrated with the present situation and indeed they have done a great job to maintain things at the level they are in what I think are intolerable circumstances. The principal, Brother Keegan, has been under tremendous pressure trying to cope with impossible conditions and I believe that he has made trojan efforts to get a decent and proper education for the children in what has been designated a disadvantaged area. The parents and their association are fully supportive of the principal and the teachers and have done everything in their power to promote the educational needs of their children. I met with the parents association, the principal and the teachers last week and I was greatly impressed with their commitment and interest in trying to obtain a proper and adequate education for their children.
I appeal to the Minister to accede to the requests of the school so that the pupil-teacher ratio can be narrowed and taken down to what would be considered acceptable levels for pupil-teacher ratio in an area such as this, which as I say, as long ago as 1986, has been designated as disadvantaged. I believe that if that is done it will make a considerable contribution towards allowing the children in this area to benefit to the fullest possible extent from primary education.
