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

Question 1365: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the steps she has taken to improve the pupil/teacher ratio in the most affected schools in County Kildare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29502/06]

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. At the beginning of the current school year there are no less than 4000 extra teachers in our primary schools, compared with 2002. The average class size in our primary schools is 24 and there is now one teacher for 17 pupils at primary level.

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 28 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 28 children in the school. Next year (2007/2008 school year) this is being reduced to 27 children per classroom teacher.

A further initiative that has been of direct benefit to primary schools 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. 170 such posts were 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 fell from 16:1 to 13:1 during the period from 1996/97 to 2005/2006. The reduction in the ratio was achieved through the creation of over 2000 additional posts and the retention of over 2100 posts which would otherwise have been lost due to the fall in 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.