Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

My Department publishes extensive statistical information on its website, including figures in respect of pupil-teacher ratios, PTRs. The most recently published figures relate to the 2008-09 school year and show that the pupil-teacher ratio was an average of one teacher for every 15.9 pupils at primary level and one teacher for every 13 pupils at post-primary level.

The corresponding figures for the 2004-05 school year was a PTR of 17.1:1 for primary level and 13.4:1 for post-primary levels. Work is well advanced on the statistics for the current school year and it is planned to publish the results in September. The preliminary indications are that the pupil-teacher ratio in the current school year will be broadly in line with previous years. It is early to speculate at this stage on the PTR trend for the 2010-11 school year. However, I do not expect it to be significantly different from recent years because, notwithstanding the general moratorium on public sector recruitment, the Government has agreed to allow schools to increase their teacher numbers to cater for demographic growth.

The Deputy also will be aware that the renewed programme for Government commits the Government to no further increases in the pupil-teacher ratio in primary and second level schools for the lifetime of the Government and the provision of 500 additional teaching posts between primary and second levels over a three-year period. The initial tranches of these additional posts have been allocated and, at primary level, this has enabled some improvement to the primary staffing schedule for the 2010-11 school year. The improvement has been targeted at medium to larger sized schools, which typically are under the greatest pressure in respect of class sizes.

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