Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response. As he suggested, this report reminds us of the importance of participating in international studies, benchmarking where we are at with where other countries are at, and trying to learn from other countries. I asked the Minister of State for some feedback on the finding that Ireland bucks the international trend with regard to rural schools. The report mentions that "nearly one-fifth of primary schools in Ireland [have] fewer than 50 pupils". The educational outcomes from such schools are quite strong, which is in contrast with the international experience. That useful finding needs to be taken strongly into account when the upcoming value for money review of smaller schools is published. I would like the Minister of State to give us an update on that review in his response.

There are things we need to continue to address. The Minister of State mentioned the importance of feedback from schools to parents as we try to ensure parents are as involved as possible in their children's education. Too often, our schools use parents primarily for fund-raising purposes, as opposed to considering them as a key part of the education system and the experience of schools. If we are to maintain the positive aspects of the report, we need to ensure we protect educational funding. The lesson we should take from this report is that the upcoming budget should not affect the pupil-teacher ratio in any way. I ask the Minister of State to give the House an assurance in that regard. It is crucial for us to ensure schools continue to focus on the development of the education product. We need to support them in that regard. I am concerned that as a result of some of the policies we have seen in recent budgets, schools are having to focus more of their energies on how they are run. As we are not supporting them sufficiently, fund-raising has become a key concern. Approximately half of the schools in this country were in the red last year. I thank the Minister of State for his reply. I ask him to address the points I have made.

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