Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 7 December 2006
158 Mr. Kenny asked the Minister for Education and Science if she will detail her recent decision to allow principals of five teacher schools to become administration principals; if this will be extended to four teacher schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42090/06]
Amharc ar fhreagraI acknowledge the important work undertaken by our school principals. Some principals have particularly heavy workloads arising from the size of their school. Others carry additional duties arising from the fact that, in addition to their mainstream classes, they have a significant number of special classes containing children with complex special needs. We are also establishing specialist autism units in schools where the principal is a teaching principal.
I am responding to these needs by the introduction of the following new measures that I announced on 12 November, 2006:
The allocation of additional teachers to allow Deputy Principals in mainstream schools that, in addition to their ordinary mainstream class teachers, also have five or more special classes for children with the more complex, low incidence, special needs, to operate as Administrative Deputy Principals.
Where a school has a Principal and four or five mainstream class teachers also has a specialist autism unit (2 or more autism classes) established under approval of the National Council for Special Education, the Principal will be appointed on an administrative basis.
The introduction of these measures will improve the capacity of the schools in question to cater for the educational needs of all their pupils and will assist their principals in their work.
