Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her reply. I acknowledge that the pupil-teacher ratio is decreasing and that is positive but this ratio wallpapers over what I believe is an unacceptable situation whereby there are more than 5,000 primary school children in classes of 35 or more.

Any teacher in such a situation is not teaching but is undertaking crowd control. That is all that is involved. There are 84 or 85 children in classes of 40 or more. That should not happen in any economy in the developed world. We need to address this specific issue. The pandemic has highlighted the issue of these supersized classes, which must be made a priority.

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