Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 98 and 120 together.

The parental representations to which Deputy Crowe's question refers were given to me in the form of a petition by the INTO. In response to that petition, I wrote to all schools pointing out the huge progress that has been made in providing extra staff to our primary schools in recent years.

As the Deputies will be aware, there are now, compared to 2002, no less than 4,000 extra teachers in our primary schools. Furthermore, there are almost 7,000 more primary teachers than there were in 1997. This represents the largest increase in teacher numbers since the expansion of free education. The average class size in our primary schools is 24 and there is now one teacher for 17 pupils at primary level, including resource teachers.

The number of children in large classes has been significantly reduced. When the Government entered office, there were more than 52,000 children in classes of 35 and over — five times the number that there were in the last school year. There were also more than 1,900 children in classes of 40 and over, compared to just over 200 in the last school year.

While I appreciate the need to make further progress in reducing class size, it should be acknowledged just how much has been achieved. In recent years, priority has rightly been given to providing extra support for children with special needs, those from disadvantaged areas and those that need help with English. Special education provision in particular has undergone a level of expansion the extent of which nobody could have predicted a few years ago, and this was only right. If we had put all 4,000 of the teachers hired since 2002 into classroom teaching, our average class size would be a lot smaller than it is now. However, we would have done a great disservice to those children who need extra help the most. I am sure the Deputies will accept that we have taken the correct approach.

Now that children with special needs are finally getting the support they deserve, we are providing extra teachers this year and next specifically to reduce class sizes, through a reduction in the mainstream staffing schedule. This has meant that, whereas all primary schools were staffed on a general rule of at least one classroom teacher for every 29 children in the 2005-06 school year, in the current year the number is 28. Schools with only one or two teachers have much lower staffing ratios than that, with two teachers for just 12 pupils in some cases. The general rule, however, is that there should be at least one classroom teacher for every 28 children in the school. Next year, we are committed to hiring even more extra teachers in order to reduce this to a general rule of at least one teacher for every 27 children.

We also acted this year to specifically address the needs of growing schools by making it easier to qualify for developing school posts. Over 280 such posts were sanctioned for the 2006-07 school year, compared to 170 in 2005-06. This change specifically addressed the needs of schools that are seeing large increases in their enrolments year on year.

Significant progress has, therefore, been made by the Government in reducing class size, in providing extra support for children with special needs and those from disadvantaged areas and in addressing the specific needs of schools in developing areas. Nonetheless, I assure the Deputies that we will continue to prioritise further improvements in school staffing going forward. I also assure them that we will also continue our focus on measures to improve the quality of education in our primary schools to ensure that increased resources lead to better outcomes for our children.

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