Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 October 2012
137. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will outline in tabular form the number of learning support teachers in our schools in 2012 and each year since 1997. [45562/12]
View answer138. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will outline in tabular form the number of resource teachers in our schools in 2012 and each year since 1997. [45563/12]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 137 and 138 together.
There is detailed historical information contained in the Statistics Section of my Department's website relating to the number of pupils and teaching posts in schools. The most recent published information relates to the 2011/2012 school year.
There were circa 6,700 resource and learning support (General Allocation Model) posts in primary schools and circa 2,910 posts (resource and learning support) in post primary schools in the 2011/12 school year.
While the allocation process for the current 2012/13 school year will not be fully completed until the NCSE final allocation of approved resource hours has been made the overall level of learning support and resource posts is anticipated to be similar to those in place in the last school year.
The Deputy may also be aware that as part of a number of reforms to the allocation process introduced at primary level for the current school year the GAM (learning support) allocation was updated and simplified.
