Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 1037: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if her attention has been drawn to the fact that a school (details supplied) draws its children from an area designated as disadvantaged, a drugs taskforce area, and that it currently has classes which are above the targets set in the programme for Government. [11256/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The mainstream staffing of a primary school is determined by applying the enrolment of the school on 30 September of the previous school year to a staffing schedule agreed between my Department and the education partners.

The system for allocating teachers to primary schools is based on ensuring an overall maximum class of 29 in each school. Where some classes in a school have class sizes of greater than 29, it is generally because a decision has been taken at local level to use their teaching resources to have smaller numbers in other classes.

In accordance with the staffing schedule, the staffing of the school referred to by the Deputy for the school year 2004-05 is a principal and nine mainstream class teachers based on an enrolment of 239 pupils at 30 September 2003. In addition, the school has one disadvantaged concessionary post, two learning support posts, two permanent special class posts, one temporary special class post, one permanent resource post, two language support posts, one Giving Children an Even Break post and one shared home-school-community liaison post. The pupil-teacher ratio in this school is only 12:1, excluding the shared HSCL post.

My Department will finalise the staffing schedule for the 2005-06 school year shortly and thereafter notify school boards of management. According to data submitted to my Department by the board of management of the school, the enrolment on 30 September 2004 was 248 pupils. The staffing for the 2005-06 school year will be determined on the basis of that figure and in accordance with the agreed staffing schedule.

Significant improvements have been made to the pupil-teacher ratio at primary level, which fell from 22.2:1 in the 1996-97 school year to 17.44:1 in the 2003-04 school year.

In line with Government policy, my Department will continue to provide further reductions in the pupil-teacher ratio within available resources and subject to spending priorities within the education sector. Priority will be given to pupils with special needs, those from disadvantaged areas and those in junior classes.

The provision of extra supports for children in disadvantaged areas has been considered by my Department as part of a review of all the schemes at pre-school, primary and post-primary level. As a result of that review, a new action plan for tackling disadvantage will be published shortly which will provide extra supports for the most disadvantaged schools.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 1038: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if her attention has been drawn to the fact that schools (details supplied) are in an area designated a drugs taskforce area, a partnership area and also a disadvantaged area, and that her Department's withdrawal of resource, learning support or special needs teachers or resources could have detrimental effects on work being done to address those problems. [11257/05]

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 1039: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if her attention has been drawn to the fact that schools (details supplied) are in danger of losing resource teachers if her Department goes ahead with the weighting system as presently constructed and that this affects nearly 80 pupils in an area which statistically has Ireland's lowest educational attainment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11272/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1038 and 1039 together.

I am aware that the schools referred to by the Deputy have designated disadvantaged status, and my Department has provided additional supports to the schools as a consequence of that designation.

I trust that the Deputy is aware of the proposed new system for resource teacher allocation. In light of the reality that pupils in the high-incidence disability categories of mild and borderline mild general learning disability and dyslexia are distributed throughout the education system, my Department, in consultation with educational interests, developed a general model of resource teacher allocation to schools to support students in these disability categories. That model, which was announced by my predecessor in 2004, to come into effect from September 2005, was designed to put in place a permanent resource in primary schools to cater for pupils in those categories.

The model was constructed so that allocations would be based on pupil numbers, taking into account the differing needs of the most disadvantaged schools and the evidence that boys have greater difficulties than girls in this regard.

The advantages of using a general allocation model are as follows: it facilitates early intervention, as the resource is in place in the school when the child enrols; it reduces the need for individual applications and supporting psychological assessments; it puts resources in place on a more systematic basis, thereby giving schools more certainty about their resource levels; it gives more security to special education teaching posts and makes special education teaching a more attractive option; it allows flexibility to school management in the deployment of resources, leading to a more effective and efficient delivery of services; and it will automatically adjust a school's general allocation on the basis of changing enrolment.

I have made it clear that while I am in favour of using a general allocation model for the reasons I have just given, I am conscious of the particular difficulties that the model announced last year could cause for small and rural schools if implemented as originally announced.

For that reason, I have asked my Department to conduct a review of the model, something announced last year. The review will be completed in the coming weeks, and its outcome will be announced in time to be implemented for the next school year. In carrying out the review, my Department is consulting with representative interests, including the National Council for Special Education.