Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

While the schedule allocates on the basis of an average, each individual school decides how to arrange its classes. This means that two different schools with the same enrolment and allocated the same number of teachers may choose to configure their classes differently. Depending on a school's own circumstances one school may aim for an even distribution across all class groups while another school may chose to have lower numbers in a particular class group or groups with consequently larger numbers in other classes.

In any discussion on class size and classes where the number of pupils exceeds the average, it is important to understand how the main staffing schedule sets out to treat schools in like circumstances in a fair and consistent manner. As I stated, the current allocation is based on an average of 27 pupils per teacher and the fact that schools make individual choices in assigning teachers to class groups. With more than 20,000 individual classes spread across all schools throughout the country there will always be differences in individual class sizes.

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