David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy English, and thank him for taking this Commencement matter.

The issue relates to a school which was told in September that it had a temporary English as an additional language, EAL, post, but then in October the school received an e-mail to say that was not the case. EAL posts are for children who need extra support for learning English. The best thing might be for me to read an e-mail I received from the principal of the Mercy primary school in Waterford city as it spells out exactly the problem the school faces. It will take me less than the allocated four minutes to do so:

It was with shock and dismay yesterday that I opened an e-mail from the Department's primary allocations informing me that the temporary EAL post sanctioned on 1 September is being suppressed on 23 October. I don't understand this as we have the children enrolled. The number returned before 5 October was well over the 20% indicated in Circular 005/2015, part 2, section 4. We are a DEIS band 2 junior school catering for girls aged four to eight years. We have always applied for and retained temporary language support staff, as we have always exceeded [the requirement] - I quote again from the circular, '20% of total enrolment of the school is made up of pupils that require EAL support'. This year we have 30% of children requiring EAL support so I'm struggling to understand why this year is different, considering the numbers for previous years - 31% for 2014, 25% for 2013, 22.5% for 2012, 23% for 2011, 25.5% in 2010 and 29.5% in 2008.

Each and every year, including this year, the school has well exceeded the 20%. The question the principal is asking is why this year is different when the school is well above the 20% threshold.The principal goes on to say:

One teacher cannot be expected to adequately cater for the needs of all 93 children who need EAL support. I would also like to make you aware the children for whom we have concerns about and who are not reaching milestones as expected have been referred for speech and language assessment. The constant response we receive back is that children must receive two years English language support before a complete assessment can be made. Therefore, from now on it will be first class before we can cater or refer an EAL child who has started in junior infants and it could be second class before they are assessed. Our most recent S&L report states 'it takes the average child between three and five years when exposed to full-time schooling and supports to speak a second language as well.'

If the Minister of State has the figures, will he outline to us how many EAL temporary posts there are at the moment in this State? There were 400 in 2008 and I believe there is now fewer than that. There were cutbacks in a number of budgets. Is that what this is about? Are we moving the goalposts of the 20% figure? Are we now simply looking at how many posts we have and dividing that by the number of schools to come up with a new percentage that schools have to reach? This was a post for this school. Schools and principals have these battles every year but when they are planning ahead for the year and are told in September that they have a post and it is pulled from them, it creates a challenge for the school and a worry and concern. I do not know if the Minister of State has a positive response for me today but if he does not and if it is a response that he got from the Department, which is par for the course with these Commencement matters, I ask him to take this back to the Minister directly and alert her to this issue. Hopefully it is an issue that can be resolved for the betterment of the children in the school.