Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 8 October 2014
27. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Education and Skills the measures she plans to take to alleviate the problem of large class sizes; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37965/14]
View answerI have already stated publicly that because of increasing demographics my Department requires additional resources to simply maintain existing levels of service. Between this year and last year this has involved an increase of around 2,300 teachers in our primary and post-primary schools. This is a very significant investment at a time of scarce resources. There is no funding available for additional teachers to reduce class sizes and it is premature within our budgetary context to be looking for this to be done.
The national average class size at primary level is 24.8 pupils. However, with over 21,100 classes in over 3,100 primary schools throughout the country there will always be variations in class sizes at individual school level. My Department's guidance to local school management is that such variations should be kept to the minimum and to use their autonomy under the staffing schedule to keep classes for infants as low as possible.
