A 19-to-one student to teacher ratio in primary schools is 'impossible' under current circumstances, a school principal has said.

The new programme for Government was released yesterday which includes an aim to improve the student to teacher ratio in primary schools – bringing it down to 19-to-one.

With a huge lack of teachers across the country, some principals and teachers are worried that this simply is not possible.

On Lunchtime Live, principal of Scoil Aine Naofa in Lucan Conor Reilly said space is also a factor preventing a 19-to-one student to teacher ratio.

“The ratio here in our school is about 28-to-one,” he said.

“We have capped it here - it used to be 32-to-one a couple years ago but we managed to cap it at 28-to-one here in the school and there's a lot of issue reasons for that.

“We're at a very large urban school, so we'd have 625 children here in the school, so the best we can do is 28-to-one and there are a few factors for that.

“One major factor is space - particularly in urban schools, the buildings just aren't big enough to facilitate a 19-to-one pupil to teacher ratio at this size of a school.”

"On the struggle"

Mr Reilly said his school is lucky that they are so close to Maynooth University so they are able to get teacher numbers from student teachers.

“If you're a large urban school, say, maybe out in Rathfarnham or other parts of Dublin, you're really on the struggle,” he said.

“A 19-to-one pupil teacher ratio in the current circumstances [or] current situation is, in my opinion, impossible, really.

“I'll give you an example - I've been teaching since 2006 and I think every year in the budget since I qualified, the department have committed to the reducing the pupil teacher ratio and we're still at 28-to-one in most urban schools in Dublin.”

"Hasn't been one brick laid"

Mr Reilly said that high numbers of incoming residents is causing spikes in class numbers as well.

“We could start the school year with maybe 25-to-one in a class but then throughout the school year, due to where I'm working, here in Lucan, the amount of new residents coming to the area, people moving in, there's just not the space amongst the schools for them,” he said.

“They need to start looking at either building bigger schools or giving us extensions, or else building more schools and that's just not happening.

“We've been on a building project here ourselves for about 20 years now and there hasn't been one brick laid at the moment.”

Mr Reilly said there are a lot of promises given to schools but nothing really comes through.

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Primary school girls being taught by a male teacher. Image: Alamy