Niall Blaney (Donegal North East, IND-FF)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 378: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if a school (details supplied) in County Donegal will be included in the school support programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22558/06]

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

I wish to assure the Deputy that no school has been told that they are going to lose any of the resources that they have been receiving under existing schemes for tackling disadvantage as a result of the introduction of the new DEIS initiative. On the contrary, the new School Support Programme is aimed at providing even more extra resources for the most disadvantaged schools in the country.

Schools that did not qualify for the new programme will keep the extra resources they are getting under existing schemes for the 2006/07 school year and after that they will continue to get support in line with the level of disadvantage among their pupils.

I am sure the Deputy would agree that it is important to make sure that schools serving the most disadvantaged communities get all the extra support possible and will welcome the extra resources that DEIS will provide for schools in Donegal.

It is precisely with this goal in mind that DEIS was designed. For example, over the years, no less than 8 separate schemes for disadvantaged primary schools have been put in place. Some schools were benefiting from just one or two of these and others were benefiting from more. The DEIS initiative is designed to ensure that the most disadvantaged schools benefit from a comprehensive package of supports, while ensuring that others continue to get support in line with the level of disadvantage among their pupils.

I can assure the Deputy that there is no reason for schools that haven't been identified for the new programme to worry as they will continue to get support in line with the level of disadvantage among their pupils. No school has been told that they will lose any resources as a result of DEIS.

A review mechanism has been put in place to address the concerns of schools that did not qualify for inclusion in the School Support Programme but regard themselves as having a level of disadvantage which is of a scale sufficient to warrant their inclusion in the Programme. This mechanism will operate under the direction of an independent person, charged with ensuring that all relevant identification processes and procedures were properly followed in the case of schools applying for a review. The school referred to by the Deputy has submitted a review application.

It is intended that the review process will be completed by the end of the current school year. Major improvements have been made in primary school staffing in recent years. Next September there will no less than 4000 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. With the thousands of extra primary teachers appointed, 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 at primary level. 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.

The number of children in large classes has been reduced dramatically by this Government. Furthermore, what really puts the decrease in large classes in context is the fact that in 1996/97 five times more children were in classes of 35+ and ten times more children were in classes of 40+. It is important to appreciate that there are a number of different reasons why a particular school may have a large class in a given year. Reasons why there are large classes include a significant fluctuation in enrolments from one year to the next and/or a decision by the school principal not to have multi-grade classes.

Regardless of the reason why there is a large class in a particular school one year, it should be noted that in the majority of cases this is not the situation in the following year. In the main, the same schools do not have large classes year after year and so the same children are not in large classes year after year.

Where some classes in a school have class sizes of greater than 29, it is often because a decision has been taken at local level to use their teaching resources to have smaller numbers in other classes. Indeed, when the matter of why a particular school has a class of 35 in a particular grade is looked into, very often the answer is because there is another class in the same school with a much lower than average number of pupils in it.

Splitting classes may not always be an option for a particular school, because for example there might be a large group in junior infants and a small group in sixth class and so on. But where it is possible, principals should consider the benefits of having smaller multi-grade classes as against having large differences in class sizes at different levels in the school. This Government has clearly demonstrated its commitment to improving staffing in our primary schools by hiring thousands of extra teachers in recent years and we will continue to make progress on this issue.