Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 October 2021
137. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Minister for Education if she will consider allowing schools that have to use special education teachers to cover staff absences due to Covid-19 given that no other substitute is available to bank the hours to use for the purpose of special education teaching provision; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50101/21]
Amharc ar fhreagraI wish to advise the Deputy that there is no facility to carryover SET hours from one school year to the next. Hours accumulated in any given school year must be utilised in the same school year.
Where hours were accumulated due to a school receiving a backdated increase to their Special Education Teaching hours, or due to a Special Education Teacher being used to cover substitution, as an emergency measure, schools were advised that any loss of special education teaching time should be made up at the first available opportunity by employing additional teaching resources to make up for the shortfall.
The decision to request schools to stop banking SET hours is an important measure in ensuring children with SEN get access to their specialised teaching on an ongoing basis and therefore it is in their best interest that this education support is not disrupted.
As a measure of last resort, schools were permitted to use non-mainstream class teachers last year to provide cover for teacher absences. Due to the successful roll out of the vaccination programme teacher absences due to Covid-19 should be reduced this year. Therefore using non-mainstream class teachers should no longer be necessary and schools should revert to using the normal sequence as set out below and should plan to ensure access to substitutes in this manner.
By no longer using non-mainstream teachers to provide substitute cover, schools will no longer need to ‘bank hours’. This will help ensure that the disruption to teaching and learning provided by non-classroom teachers will be avoided. This approach will also ensure that SET allocations are used for the children with special educational needs.
Schools have now been advised to ensure that they have plans in place to ensure that they have access to substitutes to cover teacher absences.
Supply panels have been put in place to support schools to access substitutes. Schools can also make arrangements to have their own regular substitutes to call on if they need a substitute. There is also a National Substitute service available to schools.
Sequence for covering all teacher absences is as follows:
· Supply panel if the school is part of a supply panel cluster arrangement,
· School’s own panel of regular substitutes,
· National substitute service,
· Administrative Principal if applicable
· Local arrangements that facilitate the pupils to be supervised in a manner that does not involve them being split between existing classes in classrooms
