Cut class sizes - OECD education report

Yesterday’s OECD Education at a Glance report records that our teachers are amongst the best paid in the developed world but that they work longer hours and have to deal with bigger classes than most of their peers in other countries.

There is little new in these findings, but it must be a worry that our class sizes remain stubbornly high, a reality that must put some students, particularly the weaker ones, at a terrible disadvantage. Irish class sizes at primary level averaged 24.4 pupils in the 2011/12 school year. This figure was the sixth highest out of 28 OECD countries where the average was 21.3 students per class.

As our economy improves, the idea of reversing pay cuts in the public sector has gained traction but it seems, as teachers are already comparatively well paid, that class sizes should be reduced before education funding is used to rebuild salaries. Of course, teachers would baulk at a suggestion that they fund class size reduction programmes but, equally, it seems wrong to put pupils in overcrowded classes while at the same time funding exceptional salaries.