Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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514. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to set out the number of all-girl primary urban band 2 schools under the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools programme; the total number of students in these schools; the cost to her Department, if these schools were allocated five hours of learning support per mainstream teacher as opposed to four hours, under the current rules of the general allocation model; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17881/15]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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515. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to set out the number of all-girl primary rural schools under the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools programme; the total number of students in these schools; the cost to her Department if these schools were allocated five hours of learning support per mainstream teacher, as opposed to four hours, under the current rules of the general allocation model; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17882/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 514 and 515 together.

There are 24 all girls' Primary Urban Band 2 DEIS schools (or considered Girls Schools for GAM/EAL purposes) with a total enrolment of 5,903. If these schools were allocated five hours' learning support per mainstream teachers as opposed to four hours under the current rules of GAM/EAL, this would result in approximately 9 additional posts.

There are 3 all girls' DEIS Rural schools with a total enrolment of 278 pupils. An increase in allocation from four to five hours would results in approximately an additional 0.5 post.

As the Deputy may be aware, differing teacher allocation ratios are applied under the General Allocation Model (GAM) in relation to boys, girls and mixed schools in order to account for differentials of prevalence of learning difficulty between boys and girls. The objective of this differentiation is to ensure that resources provided to schools to support children who have additional learning needs are targeted to ensure that those children most in need benefit from these resources.

The rationale for the differing ratios is based on international literature on the incidence of disability as well as international and national surveys of literacy and numeracy which indicate that there is a greater incidence of disability/learning difficulty in boys than girls.

The NCSE has published a report 'A study of the Prevalence of Special Educational Needs' which is available at www.ncse.ie and which contains details regarding the prevalence of special needs among the pupil population including noting gender differentials.

It should be noted that schools in Delivering Equality of Opportunity in School Band 1 category also receive an additional base allocation of 0.4 of a post if the school has 200 or more pupils or an additional 0.2 of a post if the school has less than 200 pupils.

Details of the GAM allocation process for schools for the coming 2015/16 school year are set out in Circular 05/2015, which is available on my Department's website at www.education.ie.