Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I cannot respond to the Senator at this stage but we will be looking at that in some detail. The reform of the process for third level education is at a fairly advanced stage at this point. With regard to productivity in the third level sector, quite frankly, we do not know enough about the reality on the ground from the point of view of the Higher Education Authority or the Department of Education and Skills, and we want to get a survey of that. In some jurisdictions, teachers are hired to work a working week and are deployed between the classroom, supervision in the school yard, homework and pastoral care and guidance. In our system, it tends to be teaching contact hours and the other aspects are added to this. It is an area that has to be looked at.