Written answers

Wednesday, 9 April 2008

Department of Education and Science

Pupil-Teacher Ratio

9:00 pm

Photo of Bernard DurkanBernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 91: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of schools throughout the country in respect of which she has improved the pupil/teacher ratio in the classroom since the last General Election; the location of such schools; their respective average classroom sizes then and at present; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13262/08]

Photo of Mary HanafinMary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Information in relation to primary school pupil teacher ratios is provided in the annual census of primary schools. The details for the current school year (2007/2008) are currently being compiled by my Department and the information requested is not yet available. Pupil Teacher Ratios in respect of all schools is currently only available at national level and not disaggregated by county or any other variable. Significant improvements have been made in the pupil teacher ratio at post primary level in recent years. The ratio has fallen from 16:1 in the 1996/97 school year to 13.13 :1 in the 2006/07 school year.

As the Deputy will be aware, major improvements have been made in staffing at primary level in recent years. By the 2006/07 school year, we had reduced the average class size in our primary schools to 24, while the pupil teacher ratio was 16.4:1, including resource teachers etc. In that year, schools were staffed on the basis of a general rule of at least one classroom teacher for every 28 children. Given that the national average was 24, many schools benefited from much more favourable staffing ratios than this.

Extra teachers were provided by the Government for the 2007/08 school year to improve primary school staffing so that schools would generally get at least one classroom teacher for every 27 children.

A further initiative in recent years 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 330 such posts have been sanctioned in the 2007/08 school year compared to 280 in 2006/07.

In the primary sector alone, there are now in the region of 6,000 more teachers on the Department's payroll than there were in 2002. Extra teachers have been provided in the 2006/07 and 2007/08 school years specifically to reduce class sizes. The Programme for Government contains a commitment to provide 4,000 additional primary teachers between 2007 and 2012. With the extra teachers already put in place this year and those provided for in the Budget, we are ahead of target with about 2,000 extra primary teachers to be delivered within just two years.

Over the lifetime of the Government, we are committed to providing more primary school teachers specifically to reduce class sizes. 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.

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