Carol Nolan spoke in support of a motion to drastically reduce classroom sizes, arguing for a pupil-teacher ratio in line with the EU average of 20 to 1. She said large classes harm disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs and urged permanent change.
Main argument
Carol Nolan argued that oversized classes are the single greatest source of concern for many parents and families, and that a child with additional needs cannot make the same progress in a class of 30 as they would in a class of 20 or 22.
Teaching experience
Speaking from 12 years in the education system, including work as a teacher, she said teachers are trained to differentiate content to suit pupils’ needs but cannot deliver a personalised, enriched curriculum in classes of 30-plus.
Policy demand
The motion she addressed calls for the government to immediately begin the process of drastically reducing class sizes, with the objective of achieving a pupil-teacher ratio in line with the EU average of 20 to 1. Nolan said she completely supports that demand.
Inequality and opportunity
She said schoolchildren have suffered systematic, structurally embedded inequalities for decades and described the current crisis as an opportunity to address those inequalities and bring about permanent change for all children.
Call to ministers
Noting that an extra thousand substitute teachers were mobilised in response to the crisis, Nolan questioned why such political will was not found earlier and urged the minister to be radical and to cherish all children equally, invoking the vision of the 1916 proclamation.
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Go rae ma agad las, ca an coirle, agos ba wala am boicis, aga báldo, teachta o leirra, agwair an Rhúan seo os ar góra noct. Én tímleis an Rhúan seo, go hila isch gauhamlaan, agos bae me ag tacu an Rhúan seo. Mara d'orch me, tá na faibein a lagu amach, agos tá na ffús, gildo na faibein a sin, awan coit mae, agos ismatla mae sin. Just to start off by saying the young Irelander and patriot Thomas Davies once said, educate so that you may be free. Those words still ring true today, but they ring true in the sense of liberation from a cycle of disadvantage and poverty that too many of our children find themselves trapped in, in Irish society. In relation to Choctaw O'Leirra's motion, it deals comprehensively with an issue that is perhaps the single greatest source of concern to hundreds of thousands of parents and families at the present time. And again, it impedes and impacts negatively upon children who are already disadvantaged. A disadvantaged child or a child with special educational needs in a supersized class of 30 will not be able to make the same progress as a child who's disadvantaged and with special needs in a class of 20 or 22. And that's a known fact. I'd just like to add that as a teacher myself who did teach before I went into politics, you know, we were trained in college that you had to differentiate the content to suit the children's needs, their strengths and obviously their interests. But you can't do that in a class of 30 plus. So the children are not getting the same enriched curriculum, the same personalized curriculum that they should be getting. They're not getting the same opportunities that we should be giving them by allowing them obviously to flourish and reach their potential. And that's an issue that I've always had as somebody who has been in the education system for 12 years. I want to especially note that the motion calls for government to immediately begin the process of drastically reducing class sizes with the objective of achieving pupil-teacher ratio in line with the EU average of 20 to 1. And I completely support that. It's something that needs to be done. Thanks to this crisis, we can no longer avoid this plain fact. In fact, our school-going children have been on the receiving end of systematic and structurally embedded inequalities for decades now. I also wonder why it is that we can marshal the political will to bring on board an extra thousand sub-teachers because of a particular crisis. It shouldn't have taken this. But prior to that, governments seem to be prepared to leave schools scrambling desperately to hold on to vitally needed and valuable teachers each and every September. And that's something I fight for every year. I'm guaranteed to be putting in appeals for schools where they're desperately trying to hang on to that valued staff member. Minister, this is an opportunity to be radical and to be truly Republican in the best meaning of that term. An opportunity to cherish all of the children of the nation equally, as outlined in the vision of the 1916 proclamation. We should use this opportunity to bring about permanent change for the educational good of all of our children. If we do that, we will have done the state some service.
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