Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 12 June 2014
94. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will consider allocating a school (details supplied) in County Donegal a base post, as it has been allocated 17.425 resource hours, bearing in mind it has another child enrolled in September who will require additional resource hours. [25104/14]
View answerThe criteria used for the allocation of teaching posts to primary schools is published annually on the Department website. The staffing arrangements for the 2014/15 school year (Circular 0007/2014) were published on 24 January, 2014. My Department introduced reforms to the teacher allocation process for resource hours in recent years which included the allocation of a network of permanent posts in base schools to cater for NCSE approved resource hours for individual pupils in schools. This network of base posts is designed to make the system work more smoothly at school level. 84% of all NCSE approved resource teaching hours in the 2013/14 school year were allocated to schools that had permanent resource base posts. There will be no changes to the location of permanent resource base posts for the 2014/15 school year.Schools with a resource base post are required to co-operate with their neighbouring schools to ensure that any surplus capacity in the (25 hour) resource post(s) is made available to neighbouring schools to meet their NCSE approved resource hour requirements. Schools that do not have a resource base post are required to check for available surplus capacity in base posts in neighbouring schools before making an application to the Department's Primary Teacher Allocations Section. Where a school that does not have a base post has been approved for 25 or more NCSE approved hours, a temporary post will be sanctioned for the 2014/15 school year. Where a school has less than 25 hours that cannot be met from other schools, sanction will be given for part time hours.
