Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 304: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the average national school class size in Kildare over the past five years; the average national school class size in the Republic of Ireland over the past five years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43092/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, this Government has made huge progress in increasing the staffing in our primary schools both nationally and in Kildare.

Nationally, there are now no less than 4,000 more primary teachers than there were in 2002, and nearly 7,000 more than there were in 1997. This represents the largest increase in teacher numbers since the expansion of free education.

The number of primary teachers in Kildare has increased by 60%, under this Government.

While the average class size in Kildare is slightly above the average, as detailed below, nonetheless major improvements have been made. When we came into office, there were 3,397 children in classes of 35 or more in Kildare schools. This has been dramatically reduced to 531 children in the 05/06 school year. The average class size has also been reduced, while the number of children in classes of 30 or more has significantly decreased also.

The information requested by the Deputy on average class size is included below.

I want to assure the Deputy that I am very conscious of the particular pressures on schools in Kildare and that addressing their needs is a priority for me. In the past two years, I have put in place specific measures to address the needs of growing schools by making it easier to qualify for a developing school post. Over 300 such posts were sanctioned for the 2006/07 school year, compared to 170 in 2005/06. This change specifically addressed the needs of schools which are seeing large increases in their enrolments year on year.

While I appreciate the need to make further progress in reducing class size, it should be acknowledged just how much has been achieved.

In recent years, priority has rightly been given to providing extra support for children with special needs, those from disadvantaged areas and those that need help with their English.

Special education provision in particular has undergone a level of expansion the extent of which nobody could have predicted a few years ago — and this was only right. If we had put all 4,000 of the teachers hired since 2002 into classroom teaching, our average class size would be a lot smaller than it is now. But we would have done a great disservice to those children who need extra help the most. I am sure the Deputy would accept that we have taken the right approach.

Now that children with special needs are finally getting the support they deserve, we are providing extra teachers this year and next specifically to reduce class sizes, through a reduction in the mainstream staffing schedule.

This has meant that, whereas all primary schools were staffed on a general rule of at least one classroom teacher for every 29 children in the 05/06 school year, in the current school year there is a general rule of at least one 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, we are committed to hiring even more extra teachers in order to reduce this to a general rule of at least one teacher for every 27 children.

The improvements we have made in school staffing in recent years are absolutely unparalleled. But we are determined to go even further, and so the 2007 Estimates include provision for another 800 primary teachers. About 500 of these will be classroom teachers, which includes our commitment to reduce class sizes.

I assure the Deputy that we will continue to prioritise further improvements in school staffing going forward. We will also continue our focus on measures to improve the quality of education in our primary schools to ensure that increased resources lead to better outcomes for our children.