Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have already acknowledged to the House that bringing guidance within quota is challenging for schools. The alternative, however, was to adjust the pupil-teacher ratio staffing allocations. Guidance is a whole-school activity, and schools have autonomy on how best to prioritise their available resources to meet the requirements in relation to guidance and the provision of an appropriate range of subjects to students. This operates at local school level. The representative organisations for school principals and school management developed a framework that assists schools on how best to manage the provision of guidance from within their staffing allocations. This approach puts a greater emphasis on group work and class-based activity at senior cycle and maximises the amount of time available for those pupils who need one-to-one support. The budget decision sheltered the impact for all DEIS post-primary schools by improving their standard staffing allocations, a fact which is often overlooked in this debate.

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