Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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522. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the degree to which provision continues to be made to ensure the viability of smaller and denominational rural or urban schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5129/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Coming from a rural background, I am very much aware of the huge importance of small schools to communities across Ireland and I have asked my Department to work with the education partners to examine ways to support such schools in their communities and to ensure a more sustainable future for them.

In general, small schools are considered to be schools with four teachers or less.  There have been a number of positive measures implemented to support small schools including an improvement of one point in the appointment threshold and a reduction in the number of students required to retain a teacher which was introduced for September 2021 in primary schools. The current staffing arrangements at primary operates on the basis of 1 teacher for every 25 pupils which has resulted in the lowest pupil teacher ratio ever at primary school 

Budget 2022 further improved the staffing schedule by one point which will bring the staffing schedule to a new historical low of 1 teacher for every 24 pupils in September 2022. 

This builds on measures in previous budgets which has seen improvements in the overall allocation of teaching posts and specific targeted measures for small and isolated schools as well as primary schools on our islands.  

In August 2021, I launched the Small Schools Clusters Action Research Project which is an innovative research project which aims to encourage small schools in a number of clusters to collaborate together and identify common challenges and trial innovative solutions. I hope the learning from this project will help inform the policy approach to supporting small schools. 

The package of funding agreed under the Roadmap for the Full Return to School was a combination of targeted supports to help schools manage Covid-19 related challenges The range of supports included the replacement of teachers and non-teaching staff unable to attend for work due to Covid-19, minor works grants to facilitate refurbishment and reconfiguration of school buildings, additional release days for principals and deputy principals at primary level, and enhanced cleaning regimes, PPE equipment, school transport costs and wellbeing supports.