Vol. 508 No. 4
255 Ms Cooper-Flynn asked the Minister for Education and Science the reason a person (details supplied) in County Mayo, who works as a resource teacher for traveller children, is not entitled to a full teacher's salary in spite of the fact that she does not require Irish to carry out her duties and teachers who do not use Irish to carry out their teaching duties have been exempted from this rule. [19269/99]
My Department allocates resource teacher for traveller posts to primary schools to cater for the educational needs of traveller children. Pupils from the travelling community are taught all areas of the primary school curriculum, including Irish.
Teachers selected for such post are required to be fully qualified primary school teachers, who, having satisfactorily completed their probationary period, have secured the Department's teaching diploma. Traveller pupils are taught in an integrated setting, either within the ordinary classrooms, where the resource teacher for travellers works in partnership with the ordinary classroom teacher, or are withdrawn in groups for intensive tuition by the resource teacher for travellers.
My Department grants restricted recognition to certain teachers who have a recognised primary teacher qualification from another jurisdiction. These are teachers who are qualified to teach aspects of the primary school curriculum to pupils aged four to 12 years but who are not qualified to teach in mainstream national schools because they do not have an appropriate Irish language qualification. Restricted recognition gives eligibility to teach only in certain categories of special schools and in certain categories of special classes in mainstream schools where Irish is not a curriculum requirement. Resource teachers for travellers do not fall into this category.
The teacher referred to by the Deputy has been granted restricted recognition by my Department to teach only in certain categories of special schools and special classes.
However, the board of management of the school where this teacher is now working as a temporary resource teacher for travellers experienced difficulties in recruiting a suitably qualified primary school teacher for the position. As an exceptional measure, the board was allowed to employ this teacher in a temporary capacity. However, as she is not fully qualified for this post, she is paid the rate applicable to her qualification which is the EU qualified rate.
