Ms Áine Lynch:

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the committee today. When the National Parents' Council received the invitation to attend the committee we felt it was important that we represented the children's experiences of rural and island schools and so we carried out a survey of parents over a one-week period, to which we received 832 responses. The questions we asked parents were solely based on the areas being examined by the committee. Some 94% of the responses were from parents of children attending rural schools and 2% were from parents of children attending island schools. We included the results of that survey in the material sent to the committee. In summary, in terms of distance from schools 65% of those who responded said that they travelled between 0 and 5 km to the school attended by their child and 27% travelled 5 km to 10 km. According to 92% of parents their children travelled less than 10 km to their local school. In terms of pupil numbers in each school, 40% of schools said they had less than 100 pupils; 37% have between 100 and 200 pupils and 22% have over 200 pupils. In terms of class numbers, 70% of parents said that there were ten or less children in their child's class; 25% had been between ten and 20 children in the class. The majority, 44%, had between 20 and 30 children in the class. Worryingly, 14% said there were over 30 pupils in their child's class.

With respect to the number of classes, 79% have eight classes or fewer. The majority seems to be around that size.

In terms of classroom facilities, which was one of the areas the committee wanted to examine, quite pleasingly, 84% of parents reported good classroom facilities. Comments on this aspect covered a number of different areas. Quite a few commented that they had new builds, had got new schools, new classrooms had been built or that planning for those builds had been approved and there were in the process of beginning to be built It was nice to see that starting to come through.

Some responses indicated that the physical education, PE, hall had been converted into classrooms and that the expansion required to meet needs was not been dealt with in terms of building. A significant number of responses indicated that were good facilities in the school but that this was down to the school communities' fund-raising and efforts in that respect. A small number of responses indicated the schools were cold, damp and old buildings. That number has reduced but it is still a feature of small schools. One response indicated that their child's school was 115 years old and they were not quite sure how much renovations had been done in that time. There was a very wide range of experience.

In terms of recreation facilities, the responses ranged from 85% plus to 63% indicating that their children had good recreation facilities. This in some cases reflected in the comments regarding the education facilities in that those parents who said that the school's PE hall has been used to provide classrooms commented that the school did not have any indoor space for children for recreation purposes. A number of respondents reported that there was very poor outdoor space areas as well, that there was little space to play and few play facilities in those areas. While the outdoor space might be a Tarmac area or a field, there was very little within that for children to do.

On the school transport scheme, 40% of parents reported that their child's school had a transport scheme, 52% of parents reported that their child's school did not have one and a number of parents did not know whether their child's school had one. Of those parents who reported their child's school did not have a transport scheme or that their child did not have access to it, 75% of them used their car to get their child to school.

Those were the main areas on which the committee asked for information on the experiences of children in schools in rural and island areas. From the perspective of the National Parents' Council we would be very keen for the committee to note that when decisions are being made around rural and island schools that the standard of education is the first element that must be considered. Many important areas such as travel distance, remoteness, ethos and protecting communities also need to be examined but we need to make sure that all those decisions come secondary to the quality of the education of children in the schools. The key message from the National Parents Council is that the standard of education for children in rural and primary schools needs to be the same as that for children in the larger urban schools.