Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 November 2021
397. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Education the degree to which provision continues to be made to ensure the viability of smaller and denominational rural or urban schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [57582/21]
View answerComing from a rural background, I am very much aware of the huge importance of small schools to communities across Ireland and I have asked my Department to work with the education partners to examine ways to support such schools in their communities and to ensure a more sustainable future for them.
In general, small schools are considered to be schools with four teachers or fewer. There have been a number of positive measures implemented to support this approach including an improvement of one point in the appointment threshold in primary schools which has been introduced for this school year. Schools are now provided with class teachers on the basis of 1 teacher for every 25 pupils which is a historical low ratio. In addition, a three point reduction in the number of students required to retain a teacher has also been introduced for September 2021. These measures will also help to ensure that less pupils are required to recruit or retain a teacher.
This builds on measures in previous budgets which has seen improvements in the overall allocation of teaching posts and specific targeted measures for small and isolated schools as well as primary schools on our islands.
In August I launched the Small Schools Clusters Action Research Project which is an innovative research project which aims to encourage small schools in a number of clusters to collaborate together and identify common challenges and trial innovative solutions. I hope the learning from this project will help inform the policy approach to supporting small schools.
