John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 516: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if he will provide a county breakdown of the number of primary schools with class sizes of 20 to 29, 30 to 39 and 40 and over for the years 2007 and 2008; if he will provide this information in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38273/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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The class size data for primary schools in relation to the current school year, 2008/09 is compiled from the Annual Census of primary schools and is not yet available. The information in relation to the 2007/2008 school year is as follows.

Schools have flexibility in the way in which they assign pupils and teachers to classes and the Department does not allocate teachers to specific classes or age groups.

In any discussion of class size and classes where the number of pupils exceed the average it is important to understand how the main staffing schedule sets out to treat schools in like circumstances in a fair and consistent manner. The current allocation is based on an average of 27 pupils per teacher and the fact that schools make individual choices in assigning teachers to class groups. With over 20,000 individual classes spread across all schools throughout the country there will always be differences in individual class sizes.

It is of course the case that some schools can have class sizes of greater than 27 but this is often because of a local decision by a school to use its teaching resources in order to have smaller numbers in other classes. Indeed, very often when a particular school has a class of over thirty in a particular grade, it is because there is another class in the same school with just 20 pupils or so.