School Accommodation.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 June 2004

Wednesday, 30 June 2004

Ceisteanna (17)

Jan O'Sullivan

Ceist:

79 Ms O’Sullivan asked the Minister for Education and Science if his attention has been drawn to the fact that a number of national schools have been told by his Department to use their physical education hall as a classroom; if he will reverse this policy in view of the place of physical education in the primary school curriculum and of concern at the growing level of obesity among children, partly attributed to lack of exercise; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19623/04]

Freagraí ó Béal (5 píosaí cainte)

Mr. N. Dempsey

I wish to make clear that the policy of my Department is to provide for the delivery of a broad and balanced physical education curriculum at primary and post-primary levels.

The position on facilities generally is that many primary schools have a general purpose room and practically all schools have outdoor play areas which are utilised for teaching different aspects of the physical education programme. Many schools also use adjacent local facilities, including public parks, playing fields and swimming pools.

A particular difficulty has arisen regarding some schools in need of additional accommodation to facilitate extra teacher appointments. In the context of the available funding for temporary accommodation and the number of applications for that funding, in the current year it was not possible to approve all applications received. As an interim measure, therefore, some schools have been advised to maximise the use of existing accommodation until my Department is in a position to make extra accommodation available.

The need for additional accommodation at any given school will be considered in the context of a review which is being undertaken of all projects that did not proceed as part of the 2004 school building programme with a view to including them as part of a multi-annual school building programme from 2005, details of which will be announced later in the year.

Ms O’Sullivan

From his answer I presume the Minister is aware that officials in his Department told schools which were denied an extra classroom but which had PE halls that they should use their PE hall as an extra classroom. Is the Minister aware of that? Does he approve of that as a policy? I ask that question in the context of the obligation on schools under the Education Act to teach the curriculum and the inclusion of physical education as part of the curriculum.

Is he aware that a recent national study of children aged 11 to 12 showed that 18% of girls and 20% of boys were obese? Is the Minister committed to physical education as a core part of the primary curriculum? Will he reverse the policy of his Department requiring schools, which have PE halls to use those halls as classrooms? That is a move backwards rather than forwards in the provision of physical education in schools.

Mr. N. Dempsey

I would prefer if schools did not have to use general purpose rooms, rather than PE halls, as classrooms. I do not want that to happen but I am aware that it has occurred and I queried the practice in the Department. On the basis of the amount of money we have for temporary accommodation and the extra teachers we are putting into the system who require extra space, it was not possible to provide the level of temporary accommodation, which was needed and a very difficult decision had to be made. Do we deny temporary accommodation to schools awarded an extra teacher and provide it to schools which have GP rooms or PE halls available to them? We were trying to ensure that the limited amount of money we had was extended to facilitate as many schools as possible. While I regret we had to ask schools to use GP rooms, in the circumstances and given our choices it was the right decision.

Ms O’Sullivan

Will the Minister reconsider this policy? A new PE curriculum will begin next year and I presume the Minister is trying to move towards providing PE for schools. Surely this is a backward step and solving the problem should not take a lot of money. I do not know how many schools are involved, but I have three examples from three different counties and I am sure there are more. Will the Minister look at this again to see if he can come up with the money? We are only talking about providing prefabricated classrooms, presumably, for the schools concerned. I do not see how he can ask teachers to teach PE in a situation where they are being deprived of a facility they have already, particularly when some of these schools have very little outdoor space.

Mr. N. Dempsey

If I had the money originally to do so that is what I would have done. I am not in favour of what we had to do but we had to do it to stay within our financial limits. Each subhead of the capital building programme, both primary and post-primary, is at a record level this year and is fully committed for the year. It is not possible to move money around or to take it from one area.

The Deputy is making a serious point and I do not want to minimise it. However, neither do I want to give the impression that this is happening with PE halls all over the country. There are a limited number of schools involved and very few PE halls are taken up in this way. It mostly involves GP rooms. Many primary schools use facilities outside the school for PE, like swimming pools, parks, local GAA pitches and so forth. This is a problem we have had this year and I hope to ensure that next year we have sufficient funding to ensure it does not happen and that the policy can be reversed.