Fast-tracking extra teachers may help tackle class sizes
He admitted his department’s system of assigning teachers to schools based on the previous year’s pupil numbers was outdated.
It is the reason why many schools have classes over 30, when teachers are allocated for every 28 pupils in each primary school, because there is generally a year’s delay between rising intakes and the appointment of additional teachers.
Department of Education figures show that more than 200 of the country’s 3,250 primary schools had at least one class of 35 pupils or more last year. That included 36 with two classes of such size, and seven with three classes of at least 35.
Mr Quinn is keeping mainstream pupil-teacher ratios at primary and second level the same next year — 28:1 and 19:1, respectively — but wants to do something about the situation, particularly in primary schools.
The idea is to see if his department can extend a system in rapidly-growing urban areas to more quickly identify which schools are likely to face a surge in numbers. It uses computerised mapping systems and Department of Social Protection data on families being paid child benefit.
“If a school can indicate that they’re going to have a problem with a massive increase, relatively speaking, then we’ll try and make sure that they have a teacher allocated sooner,” he said.
“We will take the developing-school model as the basis, enter into discussion with the relevant stakeholders and see if we can avoid what is utterly unacceptable, and that is a class with 35 pupils in it.”
He is going to have his officials talk with representatives of primary school management about coming up with a new system. But he said there would have to be evidence that growth in numbers is more than just a one-year spike if extra staff are to be sanctioned earlier.
Any frontloading of teacher increases would have implications for his capital budget, to provide new classrooms where necessary, as well as repercussions for salary costs.
The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation called for a maximum class size above which a school would be entitled to another teacher.
“The key issue is that children do not enrol in schools in similar numbers each year. Enrolment varies and the department must design a system that is flexible enough to respond to real needs on the ground in schools,” a spokesperson said.
