Minister McHugh announces creation of substitute teacher panels for primary schools
Foilsithe
An t-eolas is déanaí
Teanga: Níl leagan Gaeilge den mhír seo ar fáil.
Foilsithe
An t-eolas is déanaí
Teanga: Níl leagan Gaeilge den mhír seo ar fáil.
Minister for Education and Skills, Joe McHugh TD, has today, Monday 22 April, announced the creation of six substitute teacher panels for schools in urban and rural areas.
North and South Dublin, Cork, Galway, Kildare and Meath are being targeted in the new initiative to provide more certainty for schools experiencing staffing shortages.The pilot scheme will see up to 18 teachers hired on full-time contracts. Each teacher will be based in one school and rotate among up to 15 other schools as part of a substitute cluster covering both urban and rural areas with the potential for the scheme to cover 90 schools.
Minister Mc Hugh said:
“The creation of substitute teacher supply panels is a direct response to staffing difficulties I’ve heard about from teachers, principals and management bodies. “We are initially focusing the panels on Dublin, Galway and Cork and also the commuter belts in Kildare and Meath. These are where significant staffing pressures are being felt."
“Much like the clustering initiative for post-primary schools to work together and share teachers in some subjects, we are now asking principals and management to put the best foot forward to make these new substitute panels work."
“Primary schools are being asked to collaborate and work together in clusters in each of the six areas. And I urge them to see this as an effective solution."
“These substitute supply panels have great potential to support schools in tackling the issue of staff shortages, to reduce administrative burden and improve access to quality, reliable substitute cover.“I look forward to seeing this pilot project in action and I hope it will also deepen innovation and co-operation among schools.”
Here are some of the details of the pilot scheme for substitute teacher supply panels:
ENDS
The Steering Group on Teacher Supply is leading on a programme of actions to address concerns about the supply of teachers. The Steering Group is chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of Education and Skills. The Group held its first meeting on 26 March 2018.
The Steering Group leads on the identification of issues, the development of a programme of actions on teacher supply and oversees its implementation. An Implementation Group supports the work of the Steering Group.The Group is also supported in its work by a number of working groups which consider and report on particular issues. The working groups report to the Implementation Group.
The Teacher Supply Action Plan contains a range of priority actions identified through the work of the Steering Group and engagement with stakeholders. These actions are classified under four broad headings:
Actions to date include:
The development of an online portal for teacher recruitment is planned, and exploratory work is currently underway as to how best to deliver this.
A new initiative has been launched to enable schools at post-primary level to share teachers. Under the scheme, schools can partner together to employ a teacher in a base school, who is ‘shared’ with another school. This enables teachers who might otherwise not have full-time hours to access more teaching hours, and is a means for schools to offer a broader range of subjects to children, and to cover the provision of subjects where it can be harder to recruit a teacher. It also enables the sharing of best practice between schools. The pilot scheme is established for roll-out in September 2019 with schools invited to apply to participate.
It has been identified that there are qualified teachers working overseas who may be interested in returning to Ireland to take up positions as teachers. There may also be people working as teachers abroad who do not hold a teaching qualification who are interested in achieving this. The Minister for Education and Skills intends to visit the UAE before the end of the academic year to meet with Irish people working in education there and to make them aware of the opportunities available here, including those that have come about through new initiatives.
A copy of the Teacher Supply Action Plan is available.