Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 4 July 2006
765 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Education and Science when she expects to provide adequate school building as a step towards reducing class sizes and consequently pupil/teacher ratios; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26455/06]
View answerThe pupil teacher ratio at primary level on a national basis (which includes all the teachers including learning support/resource teachers) has fallen from 22.2:1 in the 1996/97 school year to 17.1:1 in 2004/05. Significant improvements have also been made in the pupil teacher ratio at post primary level at national level in recent years. The ratio has fallen from 16:1 in the 1996/97 school year to 13.4:1 in the 2004/05 school year. Recently I announced that I have secured sufficient funding to provide even smaller classes in our primary schools in the next school year, and the Minister for Finance has committed to a further reduction in class size in the following year. Accordingly, over the next 2 years, my Department will put 500 extra teachers into primary schools to reduce class size and to tackle disadvantage. In the context of these developments, I am conscious of the pressures being placed on educational infrastructure. However, I am confident that the published prioritisation for large scale building works, which were revised following consultation with the Education Partners, provides an open and transparent system for addressing not just this accommodation requirement but all of the requirements underlying applications for large scale capital expenditure. The level of work being done under the schools building programme is at an all-time high. While increased investment is a central reason for this — €500m this year alone — radical changes in how projects are planned and managed have also made a major difference in ensuring that provision is delivered in line with or ahead of demand.
766 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Education and Science when she expects to be in a position to improve pupil/teacher ratios with a view to in the first instance, addressing those areas currently having pupil/teacher ratios far in excess of the national average; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26456/06]
View answerAs the Deputy will be aware, major improvements have been made in staffing at both primary level in recent years. Next September there will no less than 4000 extra teachers in our primary schools, compared with 2002. Not only is the average class size in our primary schools down to 24, but there is now one teacher for 17 pupils at primary level, including resource teachers etc.
Children with special needs and those from disadvantaged areas are getting more support than ever before to help them to make the most of their time at school.
Indeed, with the thousands of extra primary teachers hired by this Government, recent years have seen the largest expansion in teacher numbers since the expansion of free education. Over the next two school years even more teachers will be put in place both for the above priority areas of disadvantage and special education and also under a reduction in the mainstream staffing schedule.
The staffing of a primary school for a particular school year is determined by reference to the enrolment of the school on the 30th September of the previous school year and by reference to a staffing schedule which is issued annually to all schools. My Department has no plans to change this arrangement.
All primary schools are staffed on a general rule of at least one classroom teacher for every 29 children. Of course, schools with only one or two teachers have much lower staffing ratios than that — with two teachers for just 12 pupils in some cases and so on — but the general rule is that there is at least one classroom teacher for every 29 children in the school. Next year this is being reduced to 28 children per classroom teacher and in 2007/2008 it will be reduced to 27 children per classroom teacher.
Under the staffing arrangements for primary schools, there is provision for the allocation of an additional post to a school where the school experiences rapid growth in its enrolment. In such cases, an additional post, referred to as a developing school post, may be sanctioned provisionally where the projected enrolment at 30th September of the school year in question equals or exceeds a specified figure. If the specified figure is not achieved on 30th September, sanction for the post is withdrawn.
For the current school year the threshold for getting a developing school post was reduced specifically to help schools that are seeing large increases in enrolments each year, as is the case in areas of rapidly increasing population such as County Kildare. 170 such posts have been sanctioned in the 2005/06 school year, compared to 105 in 2004/05.
This Government has shown a clear determination to improve the staffing in our schools and we will continue to prioritise this issue.
