Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, my county colleague. I am grateful to Senator Whelan for allowing me to go first, as the timing clashes with my motion at a parliamentary party meeting.

On behalf of the Minister for Education and Skills, will the Minister of State review the Government's position on small rural schools in light of the impact on education and communities? The Government is seeking to find 100 teaching posts this year by increasing teacher retention numbers based on last September's enrolment figures. This will pose a problem, as the proposed changes to rural schools will have far-reaching consequences for the economy - the children are our future - for the quality of education and for rural life.

For example, last September scoil náisiúnta an Tuairín in Beal an Daingin was required to have 76 pupils to hold its four teachers from next September. It had 78. In the budget, the requirement was increased to 81. A few days ago, I was shown birth certificates to prove that there were three more children in the community - there used to be four - but they were advised by their teachers to stay at home so that they might mature. Now the school is in line to lose a teacher and it is unfair that 80 pupils will have a pupil-teacher ratio of approximately 27:1, which is higher than the national average.

Moving the goal posts in this way does not make allowance for the complexity of multi-class teaching, including the teaching of children with special educational needs and of foreign languages. Even in Gaeltacht schools, Irish is a foreign language when it is not the language spoken in the home. Gaeltacht schools are a special case. No account is taken of the fact that they do three standardised tests in English, Irish and mathematics versus the two, English and mathematics, done in all other schools.

I have great difficulty with the Minister's argument for low-end numbers. While I agree with him that 12 children per two-teacher school is overly generous, he is moving the goal posts by requiring 20 children to retain two teachers by 2014. Therefore, 19 children across eight years from ages four to 12 will have one teacher despite the evidence that parents pass one-teacher schools by.

This change has angered communities, teachers and parents. It is viewed as an erosion of the community as well as education and will have a greater effect on rural communities. In a three-teacher school like Carna national school, 49 into 11 were required, but the goal posts are being moved by one or two pupils and the school will drop to a two-teacher school. Changes like this are significant for small schools. The Minister must change the date by which the new retention numbers will apply. Instead of being retrospective, they should be based on next September's figures or even later.

I wish to make a special case for rural DEIS schools with legacy posts. There are only 15 such schools, one of which is in Carraroe. The community has an 80% unemployment rate and the school has been conducting early interventions and reading recovery, but when it loses a teacher, it will no longer be able to do so. We are talking to the wall. The pupils' scores for reading and writing have been increasing. The school is making a difference. We will compromise the quality of education. The Minister has stated strongly that he is for better literacy and numeracy standards, yet we are pulling away the very resource that improves them.