Charlie McConalogue
Question:244. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills the total amount spent on the General Allocation Model at primary level; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46110/12]
View answerTuesday, 23 October 2012
Questions (244)
Written answers
Since September 2012 the combined resources available for learning support (General Allocation Model) and language support have been merged into a single simplified allocation process. There are currently over 4,700 such posts at an annual cost of circa €282 million allocated to primary schools. This expenditure includes the standard learning support/language support allocation that is given to all schools and the additional support that is provided to schools that have high concentrations of pupils that require language support. The need to reform the allocation of the General Allocation Model arose because the existing system operated primarily on the basis of 2003 enrolments which are long out of date and had been criticised by the Ombudsman for Children. Schools now have autonomy on how to deploy the resource between language support and learning support depending on their specific needs. The new single allocation for the General Allocation Model (GAM) and language support is based on the number of classroom teaching posts in each school in the previous school year. This simplified approach to (GAM) will make it easier to automatically update it annually in line with the changes in the number of classroom teachers in each school.