Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

Major improvements have been made in staffing at both primary and post-primary level in recent years. Next September there will be 4,000 extra teachers in our primary schools, when compared with 2002. Not only is the average class size in our primary schools down to 24, but there is now one teacher for 17 pupils at primary level, when resource teachers and so on are included. Children with special needs and those from disadvantaged areas are getting more support than ever before to help them to make the most of their time at school. With the thousands of extra primary teachers hired by the Government, recent years have seen the largest expansion in teacher numbers since the expansion of free education. Over the next two school years, more teachers will be put in place for the priority areas of disadvantage and special education and under a reduction in the mainstream staffing schedule.

Primary schools are staffed on a general rule of at least one classroom teacher for every 29 children. Schools with only one or two teachers have much lower staffing ratios than that, and in some cases there are two teachers for just 12 pupils. That will be reduced to 28 children per classroom teacher this September and in 2007-08 it will be reduced to 27 children per classroom teacher.

An initiative of direct benefit to primary schools in Kildare has been the change in the criteria for developing schools. For the current school year, the threshold for getting a developing school post was reduced specifically to help schools that are seeing large increases in enrolments each year, as is the case in many schools in Kildare. For the 2005-06 school year, 170 such posts were sanctioned, compared to 105 in 2004-05.

Major progress has also been made at second level. The pupil-teacher ratio at second level has been reduced from 16:1 in the 1996-97 school year to 13.4:1 in the 2004-05 school year. This reduction has been achieved through the creation of almost 1,800 posts and the retention of more than 2,000 posts that would otherwise have been lost due to falling enrolments. The Government has shown a clear determination to improve the staffing in our schools and we will continue to prioritise this issue.

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