As part of continuing measures to sustain and strengthen primary schools and in accordance with a commitment in the Programme for Government to make further progress in reducing pupil teacher ratios, the staffing schedule in all primary schools will be improved by one point from September 2022. The effect of this change will be to allow primary schools operating the standard staffing schedule to reduce the general average from 25:1 to 24:1, a historically low level. This follows a similar one point reduction in Budget 2021.
The staffing schedules in place for DEIS schools will also benefit from the one point reduction. DEIS Urban Band 1 staffing schedule will move to 18:1 for Junior Schools, 20:1 for Vertical schools and 22:1 for Senior Schools. All DEIS Urban Band 2 schools and DEIS rural schools will move to a PTR of 24:1.
This benefit in the staffing schedule for DEIS schools is in addition to the Budget 2022 allocation of €18million for 2022 and €32million for 2023, to extend the DEIS programme to further schools with the highest levels of disadvantage.