Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

It has come to my attention that some schools are not using all their teacher allocation for mainstream classes. I could name schools where a teacher is allocated full-time to do art and another may teach technology full time. Another teacher may be used as a non-teaching deputy principal. These teachers are allocated for mainstream classroom teaching and they should be used in this fashion.

There are a number of factors relating to class size, but it is important that we have secured funding and I have already begun, through the issuing of the schedule, to allocate more teachers for mainstream classes to reduce class size this September. I have a commitment from the Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, to reduce class size the following year.

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