Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In addition, the staffing process includes an appeals mechanism for schools to submit an appeal under certain criteria to an independent appeals board. The staffing appeals process was extended in the 2014-15 school year to allow schools that are not gaining an additional teaching post under the developing schools criterion to submit an appeal to the primary staffing appeals board. This appeal criterion is targeted at those schools that make a significant contribution to the provision of school places and so assist the response to demographic growth within their area and as a result are under significant pressure on their class sizes at infants level. An appeals process is also available to small schools in the event that they can show that their projected enrolments are sufficient to allow them to retain their classroom teacher in the longer term. The appeals board operates independently of the Department and its decision is final.

The staffing arrangements for the 2015-16 school year are set out in Circular 0005/2015 which is available on the Department website. The staffing arrangements set out the appointment and retention figures for all primary schools. Separate appointment and retention figures apply to ordinary schools with four teachers or fewer and to schools situated in the Gaeltacht with 11 teachers or fewer.

The Minister announced two new policies in February 2015 to provide some improvement to the staffing levels of some of our smallest schools and to particularly recognise the challenges faced by very small schools that are more than 8 km from the next nearest school of the same type. We have a range of these schools in Cork, Kerry, Galway, Mayo and elsewhere that I have visited and that change has been a major help. These two new policies were improved retention thresholds for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th classroom teacher in a primary school and improved appointment and retention thresholds for isolated one-teacher schools.

The number of pupils enrolled in individual schools is provided in the national school annual census and refers to the number of pupils enrolled as of 30 September in the given academic year. The national school annual census is generally returned by schools to the Department by the end of October. The allocation of all teaching posts is contingent on compliance with redeployment arrangements. The core function of the redeployment arrangements is to facilitate the redeployment of all surplus permanent teachers to other schools that have vacancies. The redeployment of all surplus permanent teachers is key to the Department's ability to manage within its payroll budget and ceiling on teacher numbers.

A revision to the teacher allocation process to base the staffing of a school on the enrolment of 30 September in the current school year would require teaching appointments to schools to be made on a provisional basis from 1 September, pending confirmation of enrolments on 30 September. Allocating resources based on projected enrolments for the coming school year is not practical and would impact negatively on the teacher allocation and redeployment process and the timeframes in which the process is completed.

The Minister has made provision in budget 2016 for some 2,260 additional teaching posts for our primary and post-primary schools next year. At primary level, there will be a one point improvement to the primary staffing schedule to be implemented for the 2016-17 school year. The improved staffing schedule is available on the Department website and the staffing and redeployment arrangements for all schools for the 2016-17 school year will be published early in 2016.

I thank the Senator for giving me the opportunity to outline to the House the position on staffing in primary schools. I will ask departmental officials to look at her suggestions, but she should understand that from the point of view of redeployment, it is difficult to change the system. However, there is a mechanism, where a school can show it is under pressure due to an increased demographic, to allow for an increase during the year.