Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 258: To ask the Minister for Education and Science his proposals to address the concerns of persons (details supplied) in County Waterford; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44553/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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The 2009 Budget required difficult choices to be made across all areas of public expenditure. These decisions were made to control public expenditure and to ensure sustainability in the long run. In this respect, education, while protected to a much greater extent than most other areas of public expenditure, could not be totally spared. The various impacts at school level were included in the Budget day announcements. Even with the budget measures in place there will still be a significantly increased borrowing requirement in 2009.

My Department has approved a new 24 classroom school and ancillary accommodation for the school to which the Deputy refers. This project is currently at Stage 2b of the architectural planning process (detailed design).

Progression of the project will be considered in the context of the Department's Multi-annual Schools Building and Modernisation Programme. In light of current competing demands on the capital budget of my Department, it is not possible to give an indicative timeframe for the progression of this project at this time.

My Department will be advising individual schools in the normal way in relation to their staffing allocations. The preparatory work for this has commenced with the processing of enrolment data that have been received from schools.

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.

I have no difficulty in setting out for this House or for the public generally the overall changes on aggregate teacher numbers in schools for the 2009/10 school year. I will do this when the allocation processes have been completed. Furthermore the staffing schedule will be published and it is a transparent and clear way of ensuring that schools are treated consistently and fairly and know where they stand.

The allocation processes including notification to schools will commence early in the New Year. The allocation process includes appellate mechanisms under which schools can appeal against the allocation due to them under the staffing schedules. The final allocation to a school is also a function of the operation of the redeployment panels which provide for the retention of a teacher in an existing school if a new post is not available within the agreed terms of the scheme. For the moment the priority for my Department is to move ahead with the allocation processes and begin the interaction with individual schools early in the New Year.