Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government is not opposing this motion.

I thank Deputy Harkin and her colleagues for tabling this motion. As I have said, the Government is not opposing it. I welcome the opportunity to speak to the House this morning on the very important matter of primary school funding and the many measures under way by the Government to support primary schools.

The issue of school funding is a very significant element of every school's operation. I am acutely aware of the matters raised in the motion concerning funding and the appropriate staffing provided to schools, especially in the context of rising energy and cost-of-living expenses generally, as well as increases in the number of students requiring special education and other interventions. I am equally conscious of the many steps taken by the Government in recent years to address these matters. I want to talk in particular today about how the Government addresses financial issues for students by providing a range of measures, increasing capitation funding, expanding the provision of free school books and taking other initiatives.

The motion before the House calls on the Government to commit to aligning primary education funding with the OECD average and ensure the ancillary grant is sufficient to cover the cost of running a school. The Department of Education provides significant funding and other supports to recognised primary and post-primary schools in the free education scheme by way of per capitagrants and other resources, as evidenced by successive Government investments and initiatives aimed at providing capacity to meet day-to-day running costs, bills and other expenses and a commitment that a rise in the cost of living should never be a barrier to education. This is essential for us to deliver on our goal of enabling the provision of high-quality education and improving the learning experience to meet the needs of all children and young people in our schools.

The OECD average, as referenced by the Deputy, is taken from the annual OECD Education at a Glance report. This report uses gross domestic product as the base against which to compare investment in education across different OECD members. As Deputies will be aware, however, senior academics and other independent analysts have raised questions regarding the use of GDP as the most appropriate measure of the size of the Irish economy. To assist with this, the Department of Education published a paper on the matter in October 2022 to assist users of these statistics to understand this issue. The paper is available on under OECD briefing notes. The briefing paper outlines how, using the alternative measure of gross national income, GNI, education expenditure in 2020, as a percentage of GNI, stood at 5.8%. This compares favourably to the OECD average for education expenditure as a percentage of national income, which stood at 5.1% in 2020. The document also looks at Ireland's spend on education as a percentage of total Government spending which also compares well internationally.

The two main grants provided by the Department of Education to schools are the capitation grant to cater for day-to-day running costs such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance and general upkeep, and the ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary staff such as school secretaries and caretakers. In recent budgets, additional funding has been provided to schools to meet their increased running costs. This has been provided through substantial cost-of-living supports and permanent increases to the rates of capitation paid per pupil enrolled in schools. As part of the capitation package in budget 2024, €21 million was secured as a permanent increase in capitation funding to assist schools, now and in the long term, with increased day-to-day running costs. This will support a permanent restoration of funding for all primary and post-primary schools from September 2024. The standard rate of capitation grant in primary schools for the 2024-25 school year is €200 per mainstream pupil, with effect from 1 September 2024. Enhanced capitation rates are payable in respect of Traveller pupils and pupils with special education needs.

As part of the cost-of-living measures introduced in budget 2024, €60 million was provided in additional funding to support increased running costs for recognised primary and post-primary schools in the free education scheme, particularly in dealing with challenges they face in light of rising energy costs. This funding is in addition to the €90 million in budget 2023 as a cost-of-living measure. In recent years, the Department has ensured centrally negotiated rates were made available to schools for electricity and bulk heating fuels through frameworks sourced by the Office of Government Procurement. Central rates are fixed for gas and electricity for those availing of those arrangements. These are open to all schools and I strongly encourage schools to avail of these savings.

There have been changes to the ancillary grant paid to schools this year, as referenced, to take account of the fact that certain schools no longer have certain pay costs to meet from that grant. This is because, following the acceptance by Fórsa of the Workplace Relations Commission agreement in respect of salaries and various leave entitlements for grant-funded school secretaries, those secretaries who accepted the terms of this agreement have been placed on a payroll operated by the Department of Education. Therefore, as schools will no longer be responsible for paying the salaries of these secretaries, it was necessary to revise the ancillary grant funding to take account of this change. Schools will not be paying the school secretaries directly; the Department will pay them. In the 2023-24 school year, schools have been paid the usual ancillary grant amount minus the amount they previously paid to grant-funded secretaries prior to their acceptance of the new terms and conditions. Schools are in no way disadvantaged by this as the grant is only reduced by the amount they previously paid to their secretaries, which they no longer have to pay.

Schools have been advised that work and engagement is ongoing to identify a method of standardising the reduction to the ancillary grants for the longer term where school secretaries are being paid by a payroll operated by the Department. As part of budget 2023, more than €50 million was allocated to provide free school books to primary school children and young people within the free education scheme from the start of the 2023-24 school year. This scheme is a permanent measure. More than 563,000 children benefited from this programme in its first year of operation. In the next school year, 555,000 children will benefit. The digital strategy for schools to 2027, published in 2022, is underpinned by an investment of €200 million over its lifetime which has been committed to under Ireland's national development plan. To date, under the digital strategy for schools, a total investment of €310 million has been issued to all recognised primary and post-primary schools in ICT grant funding. Schools have autonomy and flexibility in how they invest this particular funding. Funding of €50 million secured as part of Ireland's national recovery and resilience plan under the NextGeneration EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, RRF, has also been issued to all recognised schools in the free education schemes to support learners at risk of educational disadvantage through the digital divide.

A full budget allocation of €40 million, equal to that available in recent years, is available for the summer programme. As in previous years, all of the funding is utilised to meet the needs of our most vulnerable children. A key barrier to the participation of schools, following the reviews carried out, is the availability of staff, particularly those staff already working in the schools. Therefore, this year for the summer programme, to maximise the use of the summer programme budget, teachers and SNAs working on the school-based scheme will be given their personal rate of pay as distinct from the basic rate of pay which was previously the case. Consequently, the Department has seen a much larger number of schools take part across all school settings.

In addition to the summer programme grant, there are also grants for assistive technology, Irish sign language tuition and typing tuition for students who are visually impaired. There has been a significant increase in the number of teachers and SNAs allocated to schools in recent years. In special education alone, in excess of 40,000 dedicated professionals now work in this area. A review of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 has been initiated to modernise and reflect the experiences of students, staff and families. Both commenced and uncommenced sections of the Act have been thoroughly considered to ensure a robust legislative foundation. The review process will culminate in a comprehensive report detailing all findings.

Ensuring every child's experience in school is positive and that they have qualified, engaged teachers available to support them in their learning is a key priority. Budget 2024 reflects the Government's commitment to ongoing investment in teacher supply. This includes the introduction of a professional masters of education incentive scheme for newly qualified teachers graduating in 2024. Eligible teachers will receive an incentive payment of up to €2,000, which will be paid in 2025. An expansion of upskilling programmes free of charge is also being made available to school staff. These are just some of the measures the Government and my Department have taken to invest in our primary schools.

The numbers employed in our schools will reach the highest ever level in the current school year. Currently, there are more than 42,900 teaching posts allocated across the primary school system, which represents an increase of more than 5,000 teachers when compared with the 2019-20 school year when I took up office. In three of the recent budgets, it has been acknowledged that I prioritised reducing the pupil-teacher ratio in primary schools by one point each year to a historic low of 23:1. Schools have also been given increased access to an administrative principal. The threshold by which a teaching principal becomes an administrative principal has been reduced from an enrolment of 176 pupils to 169 pupils. All schools with two special classes now have administrative principal status, regardless of their size. In budget 2024, the threshold for the appointment of an administrative deputy principal in special schools was removed. This means that 100 teaching deputy principals gained administrative deputy principalship. In budget 2024, I also provided for an additional 500 posts of responsibility at primary level for the 2024-25 school year; secured cost-of-living payments in successive budgets to support schools with rising costs; and simultaneously put in place structures to help schools to manage the most significant costs.

The final issue I wish to address is the issue of complex needs and the new special education teacher model. Heretofore, complex needs were addressed by local health teams. Schools and the Department relied on information which came from the local health teams. In some instances, it was forthcoming while in other instances it was less forthcoming. In some cases, it was non-existent. It was necessary to introduce a scheme in which complex needs are fully recognised. To do that, we rely on school data in the new model. In cases in which it is not available via school data, maximum weighting is given to the complex needs of a child.

It is absolutely untrue to say that complex needs are not recognised. They are given maximum weighting.

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