Teaching English to foreign pupils costs €27m

THE Government is spending €27 million a year on language support for non-English speaking children being taught in Irish schools.

The money pays for 600 teaching staff who provide additional English classes for pupils, at primary and secondary level, whose first language is not English.

Schools are approved for a language support teacher if they have between 14 and 27 pupils not from English-speaking countries. An extra staff member can be appointed for 28 or more such students. There are at least 8,400 students in primary and secondary education who do not speak English as a first language, but the Department of Education does not keep a record of the exact number of children involved.