Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe claims that the government's plan for the reduction of the pupil-teacher ratio is being successfully implemented. Speaking this week at a primary school in North Cork, he said:

"Our policy in the plan was to deliver something like 6,000 new primary school teachers into the classrooms. We had 4,000 delivered two months ago. We will continue that programme of building schools, building extensions, providing additional capacity for pupils coming into our schools and that always has to be the priority."

A spokesman for the Minister said there were now 30,000 primary school teachers - 6,000 more than there were in 2002 - and that 80 per cent of pupils in the 2007/08 school year were in classes of fewer than 30 pupils, compared to 75 pc in 2006/07.

The spokesman added that the pupil-to-teacher ratio was 16 to one. He also said that this year, the department was creating 7,000 new school places, a figure unprecedented in the history of the state.

However, those involved at the chalk face know first hand that classes are big - too big. It has become something of a mantra in recent times that Ireland's classes are the second biggest in the EU. While the internationally recognised optimal size for primary school classes is 20, the latest statistics for Ireland, published in the Irish Independent, show that:

• Over 20 pc of Irish primary school children (95,773 out of a total of 470,270) are in classes of more than 30 pupils;  
• Just less than 40 pc are in classes of 25 to 29 pupils;
• 26 pc (122,346) are in classes of 20 to 24;
• 14 pc of children (64,902) are in classes of fewer than 20.

A further breakdown of figures obtained by the Irish Independent shows that some regions have much larger classes than others - with Minister O'Keeffe's own constituency county of Cork faring worst of all. While the national average for the percentage of pupils in classes of more than 30 is 20.4pc, Cork has 27pc of pupils in classes of more than 30.

Regions following Cork in the table are Meath, Carlow, Wicklow, Kildare, Limerick County, Louth, Clare, Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown, Fingal, Kilkenny and Waterford City.

All of these areas have suffered population booms and their schools are more likely to have a higher proportion of international children, putting further pressure on teachers in terms of English language proficiencies.

Four areas have classes with 40 or more pupils - one school in Cork City, one in Dublin City, one in Meath and two in Mayo. Leitrim had the best showing of all, with only 9.7pc of pupils in classes of more than 30.

Commenting on the variations around the country, a spokesman for Minister O'Keeffe said that "with over 20,000 individual classes spread across all schools throughout the country, there will always be differences in individual class sizes." Mr. O'Keeffe said that class size was a matter for the management of individual schools.

But INTO general secretary John Carr said that "...huge numbers of children are in super-sized classes where teachers are struggling to implement the curriculum", and he called on Minister O'Keeffe to stop relying on stock phrases about the state of the country's finances.

Minister O'Keeffe said, however, that future class-size reductions would be entirely dependent on the resources available to his department.

"I have finite resources and I will continue to improve the pupil-teacher ratio, but I can only do that within the confines of the budget that is available to me," he said.

"In my view, we have been making an outstanding contribution to ensure that pupil-teacher ratios are improving," he added.

Today (9 Sept), the OECD is to release its 2008 Education at a Glance report, which examines class sizes, among other factors. (Sources: Irish Independent, Irish Times, The Earth Times)