Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I am announcing this year that I am reducing class size and will do so again next year. In any one year one can decide in February to reduce the schedule and put more teachers into a school and it can happen the following September. It should be recognised that all the extra teachers have been put in first to reduce the class size in disadvantaged schools and will again be so placed. This will ensure not only a reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio to 20:1 in junior classes but to 24:1 at senior levels to ensure some continuity.

For the schedule this year teachers will be allocated not on the basis of a ratio of 29:1 generally, but of 28:1 and the following year on the basis of 27:1. Half of the schools in the country can have four teachers or fewer and are on a lower pupil-teacher ratio. It is completely unacceptable that any school has 40 or more children in a classroom. That is not my fault. The schools have a teacher for 29 pupils but have 12 or 13 children extra in one class and 16 or fewer in another class in the school, which should not happen.

There is no reason for any school to have 35 in a class. While schools need some flexibility between 28 and 31 pupils there is no excuse for a principal or board of management to have a class of that size. It happens because the school chooses to have a smaller class somewhere else. Some schools, particularly in urban areas, choose not to have split classes. Half the country is learning in split classes. There is nothing to indicate that one cannot receive a top quality education in a split class. Children all over the country have been taught this way for years yet in urban areas they prefer to have the bigger class size. If they choose this they should not complain about the high pupil-teacher ratio because since September they have had a teacher for every 28 pupils.

I have also seen schools where one teacher is devoted entirely to art. That may be a lovely idea but the mainstream teachers are provided to teach as such. I checked the guidelines to ensure that is the case. Another school complained of large class sizes but I knew its numbers offhand because I am good at reading my brief. I said there could not be large class numbers until I discovered that one teacher was teaching only technology. What a luxury. The mainstream teachers are supposed to be in the classes.

I will look very closely at the three classes which have more than 40 children and the others which have more than 35 and ask why that is so. This should not happen because the schools have the necessary teachers. I continue to reduce class sizes and hopefully will do so after the next election but I want to make sure those teachers are in the classroom and teaching because that is the only way it can happen on the ground.

People worry most about the quality of the teaching. We have been fortunate for generations in the commitment and quality of our teachers. Other countries with smaller class sizes have not had the same quality of education. There is no direct correlation between pupil-teacher ratio and a good outcome. The commitment of Irish-trained teachers over many years proves that. Teachers are anxious to ensure that we continue to have good quality teachers.

I accept Senator O'Toole's comments about the introduction of the new curriculum and teachers welcoming students in all their diversity including special needs, and I commend them on that. Parents may not know how many children are in their children's classes but they know whether the teachers are good. We must continue to focus on that. I will continue to do my bit in respect of class size, pumping in extra resources and putting more teachers into the schools, as long as we can ensure we have good quality teaching, co-operation with the whole-school evaluation programme, publication, and standardised testing. These factors will highlight the value of the education in our schools and we can continue to be proud, as I am, of what is happening in schools throughout the country.

The other major change in our society is the arrival of non-nationals. Senator Quinn asked me to put resources into educating them. He may be surprised, as I am when I look at the number, to hear that there are 800 teachers devoted exclusively to teaching English to the children of non-nationals. That is not in the programme for Government, showing another change in priorities in recent years to which we have had to respond. Those teachers cost €46.5 million each year. There are 600 at primary level and approximately 200 at secondary level. Schools with fewer than 13 children are given a grant to enable teaching hours to be bought in. A school with 14 children is given one teacher and a school with 28 children is given two teachers. I accept there are schools which have a large proportion of non-national intake and children with difficulties speaking English and these schools need extra supports.

A departmental group has visited those schools and has also visited refugees and asylum seekers living on direct provision in Mosney and in Cork. It has met with bodies such as the INTO, the ASTI, the JMB and will be meeting the others. It is carefully considering the needs which include the teaching of English but also family support which those who are disadvantaged also need.

Those children go home to parents who cannot speak English. There are also serious cultural differences between attitudes to school and in the way those parents discipline or treat their children and how this is reflected in the school situation. I acknowledge the importance of home-school-community service for those schools. Even with 800 teachers and the €46.5 million expenditure, I accept that in schools where there is a large proportion of children with English language difficulties, more imaginative investment is needed. I have met the principals of some of those schools so I am familiar with the issues.

Luaíodh an Ghaeilge agus scoileanna Gaeltachta sa rún. Níor ceart go mbeadh ranganna níos lú sa Ghaeltacht mar tá na páistí ansin ag labhairt a dteanga dúchais.