Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 288: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the plans she has to target schools with a high pupil/teacher ratio to bring them into line with the national average; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20214/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

As the Deputy will be aware, major improvements have been made in staffing at both primary and post-primary level in recent years. Next September there will no less than 4,000 extra teachers in our primary schools, compared with 2002. Not only is the average class size in our primary schools down to 24, but there is now one teacher for 17 pupils at primary level, including resource teachers etc.

Children with special needs and those from disadvantaged areas are getting more support than ever before to help them to make the most of their time at school. Indeed, with the thousands of extra primary teachers hired by this Government, recent years have seen the largest expansion in teacher numbers since the expansion of free education. Over the next two school years even more teachers will be put in place both for the above priority areas of disadvantage and special education and also under a reduction in the mainstream staffing schedule.

As you know all primary schools are staffed on a general rule of at least one classroom teacher for every 29 children. Of course, schools with only one or two teachers have much lower staffing ratios than that — with two teachers for just 12 pupils in some cases and so on — but the general rule is that there is at least one classroom teacher for every 29 children in the school. Next year this is being reduced to 28 children per classroom teacher and in 2007/2008 it will be reduced to 27 children per classroom teacher.

A further initiative that has been of direct benefit to primary schools in Kildare has been the change in the criteria for developing schools. For the current school year the threshold for getting a developing school post was reduced specifically to help schools that are seeing large increases in enrolments each year, as is the case in many schools in Kildare. 170 such posts have been sanctioned in the 2005/06 school year, compared to 105 in 2004/05.

At second level too major progress has been made. The pupil:teacher ratio at second level has been reduced from 16:1 in the 1996/97 school year to 13.4:1 in the 2004/05 school year. This reduction has been achieved through the creation of almost 1,800 posts and the retention of over 2,000 posts that would otherwise have been lost due to falling enrolments.

This Government has shown a clear determination to improve the staffing in our schools and we will continue to prioritise this issue going forward.