Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 652: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the pupil-teacher ratio at a school (details supplied) in County Kildare; her plans to increase same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33176/05]

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 the 30 September of the previous school year to a staffing schedule, which is issued annually to all primary schools. 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.

The mainstream staffing of the school referred to by the Deputy for the 2005-06 school year is a principal and nine mainstream class teachers based on an enrolment of 243 pupils at 30 September 2004. The school also has one permanent learning support-resource post, one permanent special class post, one temporary language support post and the services of a learning support-resource post based in the school. To ensure openness and transparency in the system, an independent appeal board is now in place to decide on any appeals on mainstream staffing. The criteria under which an appeal can be made are set out in Department primary circular 19/02, which is also available on my Department's website.