Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 253: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if the principal of a four mainstream class teacher school (details supplied) in County Westmeath which has a specialist autism unit attached thereto will be appointed on an administrative basis; the level of resources including additional teachers that will be so allocated as per her announcement of 12 November 2006; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40893/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My recent announcement referred to by the Deputy introduced a range of new measures to improve the capacity of schools to cater for the educational needs of all their pupils and will assist their principals in their work. Some principals have particularly heavy workloads arising from the size of their school. Others carry additional duties arising from the fact that in addition to their mainstream classes they have a significant number of special classes containing children with complex special needs. I am responding to these needs by the introduction of these new measures.

The new measures include: the allocation of additional teachers to allow all deputy principals in schools with 24 or more mainstream class teachers operate as administrative deputy principals; the allocation of additional teachers to allow deputy principals in mainstream schools that, in addition to their ordinary mainstream class teachers, also have five or more special classes for children with the more complex, low incidence, special needs, to operate as administrative deputy principals; where a school has a principal and four or five mainstream class teachers also has a specialist autism unit established under approval of the National Council for Special Education, the principal will be appointed on an administrative basis.

An autism unit comprises two or more special classes for children with autism. In this context, the school in question does not have sufficient special classes to meet the criteria for additional support.