Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 June 2018
296. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Education and Skills the status of the €2 million allocated to creating 100 new posts for career guidance and strengthening school leadership as outlined in budget 2018; the amount of the allocation which has been spent; the number of posts that have been created and filled; the way in which the funds spent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24304/18]
View answerFollowing Budget 2018, the equivalent of 100 additional guidance posts have been allocated to our second-level schools with effect from September 2018. The annual cost of restoring these 100 posts is in the region of €6m.
Measures announced by my Department as part of Budgets 2016, 2017 and 2018 mean that 500 of the 600 guidance posts that were withdrawn in Budget 2012, will be restored to schools from September 2018. Schools were advised in early February 2018 in their staffing schedule of their guidance allocation for the 2018/19 school year.
Circular 0040/2018, which is available on my Department’s website, outlines the number of days that teaching principals at Primary level may take as release time in a school year in order to assist them fulfilling their principal duties. Under these arrangements my Department pays for a substitute teacher to be employed by a school to facilitate administrative functions to be undertaken by the teaching principal.
Building on measures in previous budgets to enhance school leadership, Budget 2018 made €0.4 million available to fund additional release days for teaching principals in primary schools. This additional funding will see an increase in the number of release days available to teaching principals in the 2018/19 school year depending on the size of the school.
Also included in circular 40/2018 is an extension to the arrangements for schools with teaching principals to cluster their release days into full-time posts, with one teacher covering the release days of all the schools in the cluster. Up to 50 principal release cluster posts will be put in place for the 2018/19 school year. This measure will assist teaching principals to more effectively plan their release days for the benefit of the school.
