Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 139: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the most up to date figures regarding the number of children in primary classes of 30 to 34 children inclusive; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34182/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Information in relation to classes is provided in the annual census of primary schools. The reference date for the provision by schools of this information is the 30th September of the school year in question and the date for return by the schools is 31 October. Consequently, the details for the current school year (2006/2007) are not yet available.

The most recent figures available in my Department are for the 2005/2006 school year in which there were 101,608 children in primary classes of 30 to 34 children.

In terms of measuring progress, I am sure the Deputy will be interested to know that in the school year in which this Government came into office there were 52,190 children in classes of 35 and over — five times the number that there are now. 1,901 of these children were in classes of 40 and over — compared to just over 200 last year.

I am sure the Deputy will also be pleased to know that there are now 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, 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. Furthermore, the Government is committed to providing even more primary teachers next year to reduce class sizes.

As the Deputy knows 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. Over 280 such posts were sanctioned in the 2006/07 school year, compared to 170 in 2005/06.

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