Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, good luck in his new position as Minister for Education and Skills.

I welcome the review of special needs provision in schools that will be carried out by the National Council for Special Education. I congratulate the Minister on his pledge to place another 860 special needs assistants in schools in the coming academic year.

I welcome the decision in the programme for Government to reduce to pupil–teacher ratio for junior and senior infant classes. This is a positive step forward for primary education. I urge the Government to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio throughout the primary school classes, from junior infants through to sixth class.

I call on the Government to reinstate the closed-school rule in terms of school transport and to reverse the changes proposed by the outgoing Government. These changes have the potential to have a detrimental effect on rural schools.

I would like to bring to the Minister's attention the moratorium on recruitment to posts of responsibility in primary schools. Since 2009, middle management in primary schools been decimated due to a moratorium on filling middle-management posts. An example of this is a school that should have a principal, deputy principal, assistant principal and four special duty posts but which only has a principal, deputy principal and one part-time special-duty post-holder. This has resulted in an unsustainable workload being placed on senior management. Not only does senior management have an increased workload owing to the reduction in middle management, but there also has been a great increase in initiatives and changes at primary school level that management has had to deal with. I urge the Minister to reverse the moratorium.

On the SUSI grant system, it is believed that the number of applications to SUSI for the upcoming academic year will surpass 110,000. I welcome the improvements that have been introduced by SUSI for 2016-17, including the earlier opening date for applications, but I urge the Minister to ensure that grant applications are processed and payments are made on time. SUSI has been running since 2012. It was disappointing to see that at the end of last November, some 20,000 students were still waiting for their student grant applications to be processed. This led to huge financial pressure on families and, undoubtedly, it forced students to drop out of their college courses. I urge the Minister to ensure this delay will not recur and to consider putting in place a provision for emergency funding should delays occur.

As with other Deputies, I welcome the fact that small schools will not be closed, according to the programme for Government. Small schools play a huge role in their communities in west Cork and throughout the rest of the country. We need to protect, enhance and encourage the small schools and provide extra funding for them.

See this speech in context