Vol. 573 No. 3
318 Mr. Crowe asked the Minister for Education and Science if extra resources will be provided in order to make available either extra hours or extra remedial teaching staff to St. Finbarr's national school, Cabra, due to the serious problem of disadvantaged students that need help at this time. [25002/03]
My Department does not allocate additional resource teaching hours or learning support to schools on the basis of disadvantaged status. Resource teaching hours/posts are granted based on the assessed special educational needs of individual pupils in a school under Circular Sp Ed 08/02. Learning support provision is based on the enrolment of schools. The school in question currently has a full-time learning support teacher post, which is an above average allocation based on its current enrolment. My Department has no plans at present to allocate additional learning support posts to schools.
Under the disadvantaged areas scheme, the school is benefiting from the services of a disadvantaged concessionary teacher and a shared home/school/community liaison teacher. The school also qualifies for special supplementary capitation funding at the rate of €38.09 per pupil and a refund of the television licence fee. The school in question is included in the urban dimension of Giving Children an Even Break, which was launched in January 2001 to tackle educational disadvantage at primary level, and is benefiting from the allocation of supplementary grant aid towards providing additional educational supports for the children concerned over the three year period of the programme. For the 2002-03 school year, the school received in the region of €2,620 funding in addition to allocations that the school receives under the disadvantaged areas scheme.
