Dáil Éireann Debate, Friday - 6 September 2019
270. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to provide extra support for teaching principals in primary schools in view of the increase in responsibilities, reports and paperwork that must be handled by teaching principals to date and the long hours involved in dealing with this work; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34910/19]
View answerSince my appointment as Minister for Education and Skills, I have met a number of Teaching Principals and I appreciate the pressures they face. In Budget 2019, school leadership is again supported with an additional release day for teaching principals in primary schools and a further four additional release days for teaching principals in schools with special classes. These additional release days - 18, 24, and 30 depending on the size of the school - will be effective from 1st September 2019.
This builds on measures in previous budgets, including €0.4 million made available in Budget 2018 to fund almost 4600 additional release days for teaching principals in primary schools. This funding provided an increase in the number of release days available to teaching principals in the 2018/19 school year to 17, 23 or 29 days depending on the size of the school.
€2.75m was allocated in Budget 2017 to restore middle management positions i.e. the equivalent of approximately 1,300 middle management posts (Assistant Principal I and Assistant Principal II) at both Primary and Post-Primary (2,600 in total).
The Department has committed to revising the Posts of Responsibility table in the leadership and management circulars to take into account retirements during the school year. This ensures that the current level of Posts of Responsibilities are maintained in the school system.
Earlier in the year, I hosted a symposium on Small Schools which gave me an opportunity to restate the Government’s commitment to small schools and to open a dialogue with all the key stakeholders. The purpose of this work by the Department is to develop a policy proposal to help support and strengthen small primary schools throughout the country.
Any additional increase in principal release days will have to be considered as part of the annual budgetary process, alongside the many other demands in the education sector.
