Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 20 October 2021
136. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd asked the Minister for Education if she will respond to concerns raised in correspondence (details supplied) in relation to school services and the availability of substitute teachers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [51570/21]
View answerA range of measures have been put in place to provide enhanced substitute cover in the context of Covid-19. These include a major expansion of the Primary Schools Substitute Teacher Supply Panels, which now employ almost 380 teachers and provide substitute cover to over 2,500 primary schools across the country. Further work is underway to ascertain if there are ways the operation of the panels can be enhanced to help with substitute teacher supply.
The Supply Panels work alongside the existing methods of sourcing substitute teachers, such as the national substitution portal service Sub Seeker, operated by the Irish Primary Principals Network and developed in accordance with my Department's Teacher Supply Action Plan. Schools can also make local arrangements to have their own regular substitutes to call on if needed.
Measures are also underway to raise awareness of the availability of substitute work in primary schools. The Teaching Council has emailed over 111,000 teachers on its register, asking any who may be available for substitute work to register with Sub Seeker.
My Department has also adjusted its payroll operational arrangements so that the restriction on the number of days that teachers on career break may be employed as substitutes has been suspended and teachers who are job sharing are allowed to work additional hours
My Department and the Teaching Council are also planning to meet with the providers of primary initial teacher education (ITE) in the coming days to explore how flexibility in ITE programme delivery could facilitate additional substitute supply.
My Department is engaging on an ongoing basis with stakeholders to analyse the demand for substitution and to identify means to improve the availability of substitutes at this time.
The correspondence to which the Deputy refers concerns also the COVID Learning and Support Scheme (CLASS), which has been put in place to help schools mitigate the adverse impacts of Covid-19 on pupil/student learning loss and wellbeing arising from the periods of school closures in 2020 and 2021.
Under the programme, a block of additional teaching hours is being provided to each recognised school, from which schools can provide additional teaching support for the pupils/students who have experienced difficulties in settling back into school and engaging with learning.
The extra teaching hours which are being provided are additional to 13,600 special education teachers who support the additional learning needs of pupils in mainstream primary and post primary schools.
The allocations which are being made for schools under CLASS are additional allocations of teaching hours, for each school, which are provided on a graduated and proportionate basis, based on school size, using the 2020/21 school enrolments data, as published on the Primary and Post Primary Online Databases (PPOD)
Enhanced allocations are also being provided for special schools and schools which are in the disadvantaged (DEIS) scheme.
Under the scheme, every school will receive an allocation of additional teaching hours, which they may use in accordance with the needs of their students. This will enable schools to identify students most at risk of learning loss arising from the recent disrupted school experience and put in place specific targeted teaching supports to meet these students’ needs. The additional hours must be used in the course of the 2021/22 school year. Guidance has also been provided for schools in relation to how the additional teaching hours should be best used as well as details of appropriate control and oversight measures required in schools.
With regard to the psychological services to our schools, the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) model is one where there is a balance between consultation and casework about individual children, and support and development work with school personnel. The NEPS model does not operate on a waiting lists basis. This system allows psychologists to give early attention to urgent cases and also to help many more children indirectly than could be seen individually. It also ensures that children are not referred unnecessarily for psychological intervention.
Under the Special Education Teacher allocation model, a NEPS assessment is not required for students to access learning supports.
The capacity of NEPS was increased as part of a package of measures to support the reopening of schools when the provision of an additional seventeen psychologist posts to NEPS was announced, bringing overall sanctioned numbers to 221 whole time equivalent psychologist posts.
