A reduction in the number of hours for special education and support
Statistics Iceland now publishes for the first time data from the last six school years on weekly teaching hours used for special education and support in compulsory schools. A distinction is made between the teaching hours of special education teachers on the one hand and assistant teachers on the other hand. During the school year 2009-2010 43,049 teaching hours per week were used for special education and support in compulsory schools. There were 17,285 teaching hours undertaken by special education teachers (40.2%) and 25,764 by assistant teachers (59.8%). The number of teaching hours used for special education and support was greatest during the school year 2007-2008, 44,490 hours. Compared with the school year 2007-2008 the number of weekly hours used for special education and support has declined by 1,441 or 3.2%. At the same time the number of pupils in compulsory education has decreased by 2.1% and the number of pupils receiving special education and support has increased by 0.1%.
Almost one out of four pupils receive special support
During the school year 2009-2010 10,654 pupils received some kind of special education or support, or 24.8% of all pupils. That is an increase of four pupils from the previous year. As in previous years the largest proportion of pupils receiving support is found among pupils in fourth grade (9 year old pupils), or 28.5% of the cohort. Of those pupils, 61.2% were boys and 38.8% were girls. The number of boys receiving special support declined from the previous school year while the number of girls increased. When comparing with data from the previous year more pupils receive support in special education classrooms and fewer pupils receive support both in special education classrooms and in the regular classrooms.
Weekly instruction hours decreased by 1.4 from the previous year
In grades 1-10 the total weekly instruction time has decreased by 1.4 instruction hours on average since the school year 2008-2009. The decrease is greatest in grades 2-4 but the average number of hours in grades 6-8 also declines. During the school year 2009-2010 pupils in grades 1-10 received a total of 337.9 lessons per week, which is close to the average number of teaching lessons during the last 10 years. The number of instruction hours was greatest in 2007-2008 or 346.1 lessons.
According to the law on compulsory schools from 2008 the annual school period for pupils should not be shorter than 9 months. The number of pupils’ school days during the school year should not be fewer than 180. The minimum weekly teaching time in grades 1-4 in compulsory education is 1,200 minutes (30 lessons), 1,400 minutes in grades 5-7 (35 lessons) and 1,480 minutes in grades 8-10 (37 lessons). When splitting these minutes into 40 minute lessons each pupil should get at least 336 weekly lessons during his ten years in compulsory education, or 33.6 per year on average.
Pupils in compulsory schools received on average 1.9 lessons more than the minimum number of lessons according to the law during the school year 2009-2010. However the average number of lessons is lower than stipulated in the law for pupils in grades 5-6, and 8-10, by 0.1-0.2 lessons per grade.
There are 179.8 school days on average
The school period is counted in school days, which are divided into teaching days, examination/assessment days and other teaching days. Other teaching days are days when teaching according to the timetable does not take place, such as when field trips and school trips are organised. The difference in the number of school days by grade during the school year 2009-2010 is not significant. The average number of school days for all grades was 179.8, which is an increase of 0.3 days from the previous school year. There were 180 school days in around 90% of all schools, ranging from 143 to 200 days. There were fewer school days than 180 in 7-13 schools, depending on the grade. During the school year 2008-2009 there was greater variation between schools in the number of days, but there were 180 school days in approximately 80% of compulsory schools.
Statistics