I wish to share my time with Senator O'Toole.
Adjournment Matter. - Castledermot (Kildare) School.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I thank the Cathaoirleach for accepting this matter. I am making a plea to the Minister for Education on behalf of the community of Castledermot, the children attending Scoil Diarmada primary school, their parents and their teachers that the Minister provide them with the type of high quality primary education which is their right and to which the Minister is committed.
My plea is that Scoil Diarmada will continue to have seven teachers for eight classes and not, as is proposed by the Department of Education, be reduced to six teachers, a principal and five assistants. On 10 June the Minister wrote to the school principal to say: "the sixth assistant's post will be suppressed at the end of the current year". My argument with the Minister is that this reduction is unwarranted and unnecessary because pupil numbers at the school are increasing. New enrolment for September 1996 stands at 39 pupils while the number leaving is 27. These are authentic figures which can be confirmed by the Department's inspector. This brings the total number to 197, five more than the number needed for a principal and six assistants.
It seems ludicrous to lose a teacher on the basis of an out of date figure of 185 pupils when the 1996 figure will, in any event, mean restoring the full teaching strength in September 1997. The teacher who has fitted into the community and has been at Scoil Diarmada for ten years will be replaced by a newcomer and in 12 months time a new teacher will be needed if the Department's proposal is adopted. This appears to be bureaucracy gone mad. Scoil Diarmada has made four applications since 1993 for a concessionary teacher. I have a file with routine replies from the Minister to my representations. I am told in these replies: "I am making inquiries about this matter and I will write to you again as soon as possible". I am still waiting to be written to again.
Over the past 30 years Scoil Diarmada's teachers and pupils have had to put up with below standard classrooms, a small prefab, no gym hall or lunch room and a ten minute walk to the GAA grounds across one of the busiest roads in the country. At present there are seven teachers to eight classes and this has resulted in three classes being divided between two teachers. If, as the Minister proposes, another teacher goes, there will be six split classes in overcrowded conditions and the pupil/ teacher ratio will be all wrong. As a result of the new improved main road leading to south Kildare and its proximity to Carlow, Castledermot is likely to experience population growth. Extra local authority houses are being built, which I welcome, but school facilities will be stretched even more than now.
A meeting of the parents association of Scoil Diarmada on 5 June left me and other public representatives who attended in no doubt as to the strong feelings of the Castledermot community on this issue. The anger was such that a highly responsible group, the parents, took the big step of withdrawing their children from the school for a day and picketing it on 20 June. The INTO also mounted an official picket on that day. It was attended by the president of the teachers' organisation and myself. The parents ensured that no children attended this protest, again underlying the responsible approach of the community.
In addition, the Minister will be aware from the many letters written to her by parents after the June public meeting and from earlier pleas made in January last year for a concessionary teacher by the entire membership of the parents' association, how much the people in Castledermot are asking her to grant their request. There is high unemployment in and around Castledermot. In an urban environment, I have no doubt the school would be afforded disadvantaged status.
Has the Minister been furnished with the report of the inspector who recently visited the school and has she read it? I renew my plea to ask the Minister to retain the present number of staff at the school and show south Kildare and its children that they are not forgotten by the Government.
I thank Senator Dardis for sharing his time. I am very much aware of the situation in this school. It was with great reluctance that the INTO decided to take industrial action there, on an issue which did not involve money or jobs for our members but because it was an injustice.
The numbers of children attending our schools are decreasing. Since this became an issue, every Government and Minister for Education since 1987 has agreed that we should cushion its impact in a sensible way. Of the 300 schools losing pupil numbers, we estimate that about 100 do not need to lose their teaching staff at this time. By so doing, they will be left with the highest number of pupils per class in Europe. Although we generally have the highest average class sizes in Europe, schools like Castledermot will be at the upper end of that figure if they lose their teacher. They are being asked to do this so the Minister can redistribute teachers to other needy places. However, by trying to deal with disadvantage in other areas, places like Castledermot are being asked to pay too high a price and are being disadvantaged themselves. We should not help disadvantaged urban areas by denuding provincial and rural ones and making the children there suffer from having the largest class sizes in Europe is unacceptable.
This is an inequity. Parents, teachers and the boards of management in these schools and at Castledermot are at one on this issue. We are not irresponsible people; we have examined the matter. The situation in this case is exacerbated by the fact that, as Senator Dardis pointed out, the numbers in Castledermot have troughed and are now increasing. Those facts have been established by the departmental inspector during his recent visit. Therefore, the Minister should insist that the Department shows a sense of practical resolution on this matter, concede it to the school and allow it to retain its staffing for the forthcoming year.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk to the House about this matter. At the outset, I draw the Senator's attention to the manner in which the staffing allocation of primary schools is determined. The staffing of a national school for a particular year is determined by the enrolment of the school on 30 September of the previous year. This practice is in accordance with an agreement on staffing entered into between the Government and the INTO.
Not for this year. There is no agreement at the moment.
The enrolment of Scoil Diarmada, Castledermot, on 30 September 1994 was 192 pupils. This enrolment warranted a staffing of a principal and six assistants for the 1995-96 school year. Additionally, the school has the services of a remedial teacher.
Unfortunately, the enrolment of the school on 30 September 1995 had declined to 185 pupils. This latter enrolment warrants a staffing of a principal and five assistants for the 1996-97 school year. Scoil Diarmada would have to achieve an enrolment of 192 pupils on 30 September 1995 to retain its sixth assistant teacher. In the circumstances, the sixth assistant's post will be suppressed at the end of the current school year. The teacher in question has been offered panel rights which effectively guarantees the teacher another permanent post in a school within a 28 mile radius of Scoil Diarmada in Castledermot. The managerial authorities of Scoil Diarmada appealed the decision to suppress the sixth assistant's post. The basis of the appeal was the specific accommodation difficulties which were said to exist at the school.
In response to the appeal, an inspector's report was commissioned by officials of the Department. The report has now been received and has been examined in detail. The report indicates that while the classrooms are smaller than modern day classrooms, the school's enrolment can be competently managed within the existing accommodation. Unfortunately, therefore, the appeal must be rejected. The board of management anticipates that the school will experience an increase in enrolment over the coming years; Senator Dardis referred to that. This is attributed to the influx of families into the area.
A school attains developing school status when it achieves a minimum numerical increase in enrolment of 25 pupils in one year relative to the previous year. Thus in the case of Scoil Diarmada, developing school status will be achieved if the school increases its enrolment in September 1996 to 210 pupils. On achieving developing school status, arrangements will be made to immediately sanction the appointment of an additional teacher to the school.
Alternatively, if the school fails to increase its enrolment sufficiently to achieve developing school status, it might still qualify for additional staffing on the basis of breach of maximum class size guidelines. Maximum class size guidelines for the 1996-97 school year are as follows: 35 in the case of a single grade class group, 34 in the case of a class group of two consecutive grades, 31 in the case of multi-grade class group and 29 in the case of schools designated as disadvantaged.
Applications for additional staffing on the grounds of breaching maximum class size guidelines should be submitted to the Department before 1 November.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.10 p.m until 10.30 a.m on Wednesday, 3 July 1996.