Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 3 Nov 1999

Vol. 510 No. 1

Adjournment Debate. - School Staffing.

Mr. Farrelly

Last year, the Minister for Education and Science announced that remedial teachers would be provided for all primary schools, not just in County Meath but throughout the country. Since September 1999, it has come to my attention from parents of children who need remedial teachers that extra teachers have not been appointed but that the teacher who visited three schools on a daily and weekly basis was given the job of visiting two further schools in the north Meath area. The details were astounding, to say the least. When the teacher got to the fifth school, she had ten minutes to deal with each pupil following an exhausting day travelling. The Government has made a decision to provide remedial teaching to every school throughout the country but each child available for remedial teaching is now obtaining less remedial teaching than he received last year. I am very surprised at this. The Minister seemed genuine in his announcement in this House and during discussions at the Joint Committee on Education and Science, of which I am vice-chairman, about the system being put in place last September to ensure a better remedial service for children who need remedial teaching throughout the country.

What is now in place, what the children of County Meath have, what the parents of children who require remedial teaching throughout the country have, is a far worse service than existed when the Minister took up office. Is it acceptable to put this pressure on teachers, parents and children? Teachers are now travelling throughout the country like racing drivers. They were under enough pressure already but they are now much worse off as a result of the decision made in September by the Minister for Education and Science. On behalf of all the children throughout the country, apart from those children in County Meath and the parents who have spoken to me about this, when will the Minister alleviate the problem and provide decent remedial teaching for the children who require it at primary level?

Mr. O'Dea

One of the priorities of the Government was to improve the level of educational support given to pupils with special educational needs because it was aware that many pupils with special educational needs did not have access to an appropriate level of support. I consider that the Government's commitment in this is clearly demonstrated by the significant expansion of the remedial teacher service.

The primary focus will always be to prevent literacy and numeracy difficulties and to help children within each class. Primary teachers are trained to deal with a variety of reading problems, including those accompanied by perceptual difficulties. The majority of pupils with remedial needs are helped within the scope of the normal teaching service. This has been clearly established as the most effective and important approach. However, it is acknowledged that remedial teachers constitute the main additional resource for addressing the problem of under achievement in primary schools. Remedial teachers are a particularly important resource in catering for children with less serious learning difficulties by directly teaching individuals or small groups or, crucially, acting as a leader in the class and school approach to helping every child achieve high literacy and numeracy standards. Where individual pupils are concerned, it is important that the educational response takes a variety of forms and should be tailored to meet the needs of the individual pupil.

The Deputy will be aware that the Government recently announced a major expansion of the remedial teaching service in first and second level schools. The priority was to ensure that all schools which were without a service would have access to one with effect from September 1999. Since then an additional 160 remedial teacher posts have been sanctioned to primary schools to ensure that all schools have access to a remedial service. This brings the total number of remedial teachers currently in place to 1,463.

The Deputy will appreciate that this represents a huge ongoing investment in remedial services. The caseload assigned to the new appointees is fully in line with the recommendations of the Special Education Review Committee report. Overall the number of remedial teachers in schools are in line with this and international guidance. The recommended caseload is 40 eligible pupils in the case of a single post, this to be reduced by two pupils for each additional school in the cluster, subject to a maximum reduction of eight pupils.

At the same time, the Minister has published a comprehensive review of the remedial service which outlines very significant areas which need to be addressed to improve its impact in our schools. As has already been said, we must all make sure that we are using the remedial service properly and in a whole school context. We cannot have a situation where we fail to address underlying problems by simply calling for the ongoing expansion of the number of remedial posts in the system. This is not to suggest that there are not schools with insufficient coverage, but if we believe that more teachers is the answer to everything to do with remedial provision, we will never address the remedial problems in our schools.

All national schools in County Meath have the services of a remedial teacher, either on a full- time or shared basis. There are a total of 39 remedial teachers serving these schools. The breakdown is as follows: 15 teachers serving one school, six serving two schools, ten serving 30 schools, six serving 24 schools, one serving five schools and one serving six schools.

The Minister has been informed that the remedial service in the County Meath area is in general significantly within the expert guidelines outlined above. In the context of an adjustment to the manner of allocating such posts, such deficiencies as may be identified could be addressed.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.20 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 4 November 1999.