Teacher Training

Tuesday, 11 May 2021

Questions (451)

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Question:

451. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Education the funding and supports that have been provided for professional development training on islands in each of the past five years. [23816/21]

View answer

Written answers

Minister for Education

The Department of Education promotes the quality of teaching and learning through the provision of continuing professional development (CPD) and supports for all teachers and principals. The majority of this support is provided by the national teacher education support services and by local education support centres. The national teacher education support services are the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST), Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT), National Induction Programme for Teachers (NIPT) and the Centre for School Leadership (CSL).

Funding provided to the main teacher education support services and education support centres for continuous professional development for teachers and Principals since 2016 is as follows:

2016 €22.605m

2017 €27.806m

2018 €30.898m

2019 €29.052m

2020 €22.454m

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the delivery of CPD moved online during 2020 and this has continued into 2021.

The move to online provision of CPD has resulted in reduced expenditure in 2020 as some of the costs associated with face-to-face CPD provision did not arise e.g. travel, catering. However this has not affected the level of CPD being provided.

The move to online provision has increased the range and numbers of courses available to all teachers, including teachers in island schools, as geographical location is no longer a factor when considering attending a course.

It is not possible to provide a breakdown of funding of CPD provided to island schools but all CPD supports provided by the national support services are made available to island schools.

In addition, Education Support Centres liaise with all schools in their region (including island schools) to determine CPD requirements and endeavour to address these needs through the implementation of an extensive local course programme. The Education Support Centre which is responsible for serving the region in which each island school is located informs the island schools of all courses being run and makes all courses available to all schools in their region.

Some specific examples of CPD supports provided by the National Support Services to island schools in recent years are included in the table attached.

Support Service	CPD availed of between September 2015-May 2021
PDST	School Support - At Primary level, PDST have supported 10 individual island schools, providing 41 school support visits, resulting in 96 teacher CPD interactions - At Post-Primary level, PDST have supported 5 individual island schools, providing 26 school support visits resulting in 139 teacher CPD interactions Leadership events - 6 Primary island schools attended leadership events resulting in a total of 45 Teacher CPD interactions - 2 Post-Primary island schools attended leadership events resulting in 6 teacher CPD interactions PDST CPD events attended by teachers from island schools - At Primary level - The majority (10) of primary island schools had teachers who attended optional PDST CPD events with 43 Teacher CPD interactions at PDST events - At Post-Primary level - 5 Post-Primary Island schools had teachers who attended optional PDST CPD events with 65 Teacher CPD interactions at PDST events
JCT	All five Post-Primary island schools were offered and availed of the following over the last five years: - JCT Whole-school CPD Support - JCT Whole-school support for teachers allocated Junior Cycle Management Resource Hours - JCT Subject specific CPD Support both in face-to-face and online clusters of schools - L1L2Ps Support While all Island Schools were offered Leadership Support, this was not availed of in any number, until this year when the supports went online.
NIPT	Droichead Professional Support Team (PST) Training for newly qualified teachers: - Of 12 Primary Island schools, 4 completed Droichead PST training - Of 5 Post-Primary Island schools, 3 engaged in PST training
CSL	- 7 Newly Appointed Primary Principals availed of one to one Mentoring - 1 Principal attended the Post grad in School Leadership (PDSL)