Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

In many communities the urbanisation trend has already resulted in the closure of the rural shop or pub. We must have a genuine conversation about the role that can be played by rural schools and how we can reshape our school system to ensure these communities are supported and maintained. Let us have this debate in the context of the second decade of the 21st century. Let us examine what is taking place across the water or north of the Border where the Minister for Education, Mr. John O'Dowd of Sinn Féin, is contemplating closing upwards of 100 schools because of rural depopulation. Last Monday week, I participated in a conference with the chief inspectors of schools in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic. Communities in all four jurisdictions, as well as in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, must try to square the circle of maintaining rural communities in the modern age by delivering education and recognising the changes that are taking place.

We must look at the reality of what is happening. Unlike the King Lear of Fianna Fáil, Deputy Ó Cuív, we cannot turn to the tide of urbanisation and say it is not coming in. Let us see how we can deal with it and do the sort of things he wants to do.

This debate gives me an opportunity to state categorically that this measure - the change in the pupil-teacher ratio - is not about closing schools, which I have acknowledged play an important part in our communities, particularly in rural areas. In the budget, there was no increase in the general average of the pupil-teacher ratio of 28:1 in our primary schools, something for which many people had called. However, the budget included a phased increase in the pupil threshold for the allocation of classroom teachers in small primary schools. The only thing that is changing for small schools is that their average class sizes will no longer be as advantageous as they have been in the past due to the phased increases in the pupil thresholds in the staffing schedule.

The existing staffing appeals process will be accessible to small schools, in particular those schools which are projecting increased enrolments that would be sufficient to allow them to retain their existing classroom posts over the longer term. The details on how the appeals system will operate will be made clear as part of my Department's forthcoming circular. It will issue shortly to all schools on the staffing arrangements for the 2012-13 school year.

It is not sustainable - the Deputies opposite know this very well no matter what part of rural or urban Ireland in which they live - for the Department of Education and Skills to continue to provide a second classroom teacher to a school that has 12 pupils. Can anyone honestly say that we can afford to have a staffing schedule threshold that provides for a full-time classroom teacher with an average as low as six pupils per classroom? That is a better pupil-teacher ratio than for children with special needs in special schools. Is that what the Deputies opposite are defending? Of course, some teachers in these small schools will call for these exceptionally favourable arrangements to continue but how fair is this to the taxpayer or, indeed, to their teaching colleagues in the same union and in medium to larger schools, some of whom must teach 30 or more pupils in their classrooms?

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