Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The referred commitment in the programme for Government relates to a reduction in class sizes, through improvements in the staffing schedule by which classroom teachers are assigned to schools. The pupil-teacher ratio on the other hand, counts all the teachers in schools, not only those employed as mainstream classroom teachers, but also those working in areas such as resource teaching and language support.

There are now 5,000 more primary teachers than in 2002. The estimated annual value of additional expenditure on these posts is approximately €300 million. As a result of the appointment of extra teachers, the pupil-teacher ratio has been reduced to 16.4:1. In addition to mainstream class teaching duties, additional posts have been used for other improvements. These include the introduction of the general allocation model for deploying learning support-resource teachers in September 2005 and the allocation of additional learning support-resource teachers. There has been a major expansion in the number of language support teachers meaning some schools have six language support teachers each; the appointment of administrative principals for schools with principal and four or five mainstream teachers which also has a specialist autism unit; and the appointment of administrative deputy principals for the first time.

The staffing schedule for the allocation of mainstream classroom teachers to schools has also been improved. In the 2005-06 school year, schools were staffed on the basis of a general rule of at least one classroom teacher for every 29 children. This year it was reduced to one for 27.

The threshold for getting a developing school post has also been reduced in recent years specifically to help schools that are seeing large increases in enrolments each year. More than 330 such posts have been sanctioned in the 2007-08 school year compared to 117 in 2003-04.

The programme for Government commitment involves further improvements in the staffing schedule for primary schools so that subject to financial consideration schools would be staffed on the basis of a general rule of at least one classroom teacher for every 24 pupils.

The improvements made in primary school staffing in recent years are unparalleled. The Government is committed to providing more primary teachers over the next five years. We will also continue our focus on measures to improve the quality of education in our primary schools to ensure increased resources lead to better outcomes.

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