Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)

I am sure the Minister is aware that if there are cuts to teacher numbers and the pupil-teacher ratio goes up, this means more kids in classrooms in primary schools, but at secondary level it sometimes means that schools need to cut subjects. One school in Dublin has had to drop its honours maths teacher and its art teacher. Whatever way one looks at it, it seems a retrograde step to make honours maths and art unavailable in a school where they were previously available. Kids may have been studying one of these for three years and, all of a sudden in year four and year five, it is no longer available. Given that the Government is pretty keen to make sure we are progressive in the subjects we make available to students and that the future must involve an improvement in education facilities in order to benefit the workforce, does the Minister not think there should be some way of making sure schools do not lose particular subjects? Is there any way of safeguarding this?

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