New staffing measures for disadvantaged primary schools and an appeals mechanism for small primary schools were announced today by Minister for Education and Skills Ruairi Quinn TD.
He briefed Cabinet colleagues on the impact of budgetary measures on DEIS Band 1 and 2 disadvantaged schools. He also announced a new appeals mechanism for small schools that are projecting increased enrolments in September.
Budget 2012 provided for the phased withdrawal of approximately 428 posts allocated to some schools under disadvantage programmes prior to the introduction of the DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) initiative in 2005.
In January 2012, Minister Quinn asked his Department to report on the net effect, in terms of posts, of Budget measures on DEIS Band 1 and Band 2 urban primary schools that still had additional posts allocated under disadvantage schemes, pre-dating DEIS.
The report published today, provides data for 140 DEIS Band 1and DEIS Band 2 schools which were identified as being impacted by the possible loss of posts. Where schools are adversely affected by Budget measures, the most significant losses can be attributed to the withdrawal of posts from previous disadvantaged schemes. The losses from other factors such as the change to the new staffing schedule for Band 1 schools, demographics or the new General Allocation Model are not as significant.
The report indicates that the majority of schools, 107, would lose between 0.5 – 2 legacy posts while 22 schools would lose between 3 and 4 legacy posts, and a further 3 schools would lose more than 5 legacy posts. 8 schools would not lose any legacy posts.
On foot of the analysis, the Government has now agreed to retain a total of 235 posts, on a concessionary basis, in DEIS Band 1 and DEIS Band 2 schools.
As already announced the withdrawal of 192 posts from primary schools outside DEIS Band 1 and 2 and from DEIS second level schools will proceed.
The Minister had indicated previously that savings would have to be made elsewhere in the primary school budget to make up for the costs incurred by the retention of these 235 posts in DEIS Band 1 and DEIS Band 2 schools.
The budget measures announced in December last included a reduction in overall capitation funding for primary schools of 2% in 2012 and a further overall reduction of 2% to be applied in 2013. The financial impact in 2012 of the retention of legacy disadvantaged posts in primary schools will be met by bringing forward to this year part of the reduction in overall capitation funding originally scheduled for 2013.
The reduction in overall capitation funding in 2012 will now be 3.5%.and will occur through an additional reduction in the basic capitation grant rate. This rate was reduced to €183 per capita and will now be reduced to €178 applicable to all payments from January 2012.
In relation to the reallocation of posts under the General Allocation Model (GAM), the Minister had already indicated that the position of DEIS Band 1 schools would be considered favourably. The Minister has now confirmed that these schools will be given an additional allocation of 0.2 of a post where the school has less than 200 pupils and 0.4 of a post where the school has 200 or more pupils.
The Budget also provided for a phased increase in the pupil thresholds for the allocation of mainstream classroom teachers in small primary schools. The first of these phased increases in the pupil thresholds takes effect from September 2012.
There are 3,200 primary schools across Ireland. One in three primary schools has an enrolment of less than 86 pupils as at September 2011.
As a result of Budget 2012 changes in staffing arrangements approximately 73 schools nationally have been identified as losing a teacher from September 2012. This represents just 6% of all small schools.
An independent Primary Staffing Appeals Board is available to all schools as part of the allocation process each year. The staffing appeals board will now be accessible to those small schools that are due to lose a classroom teacher due to the Budget measure but are now projecting increased enrolments in September 2012 that would be sufficient to allow them to retain their classroom teachers over the longer term.
The Department’s circular on the staffing arrangements in primary schools for the 2012 / 2013 school year is now available on the Department’s website.
The full report on DEIS schools is also available on the Department’s website at
http://www.education.ie/home/home.jsp?maincat=17216&pcategory=17216&ecategory=33128&language=EN