Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

In so far as the education sector is concerned, the programme for Government from 2002 states:

We will continue to reduce the pupil: teacher ratio in our schools. Over the next five years we will progressively introduce maximum class guidelines which will ensure that the average size of classes for children under 9 will be below the international best practice guideline of 20:1.

Next year, 100,000 pupils will be in classes of over 30 and more than 450,000 primary school children will be in classes of more than 20. My understanding is that primary and secondary schools submitted their enrolment figures to the Department on 20 September. In his replies from China, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, stated there will be 200 job losses each in the primary and secondary sectors. I seek a commitment from the Tánaiste that the Government will publish the enrolment figures within the next 48 hours to verify who is telling the truth in this regard——

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