Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 10 July 2019
197. Deputy Brendan Howlin asked the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated first full-year costs of increasing the substitution provided to primary schools with teaching principals sufficient to ensure that all teaching principals can avail of one full day of administrative duties each week; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30339/19]
Amharc ar fhreagraSince my appointment as Minister for Education and Skills I have met with a number of Teaching Principals, including at this year’s IPPN conference, 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 4,600 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.
Enabling teaching principals to have one release day per week would cost an estimated €7.5m per annum.
Any additional increase in the number of release days will have to be considered as part of the annual budgetary process, alongside the many other demands in the education sector.
