Mr. Eddie Ward:

The Department very much shares the concerns out there. We meet IPPN, NAPD, parents and a variety of stakeholders from time to time. There are major concerns about what is happening in our schools. We are tied by resource limitations. In my presentation I outlined the evolution from when we held very tightly the ownership of the management of schools to a more open model. Much of what happens in schools is negotiated and worked out between national partners. The composition of boards of management is very much agreed through local decision making.

We are looking at the picture anew. The concept that we need a new strategy around promoting school leadership is at the forefront of the Department's thinking. A theme, echoed in the presentations of IPPN and NAPD as well as by the Deputies and Senators, is that a principal must be given the time and space to be first and foremost a leader of teaching and instruction in school and the management role must very much take second place. The research and the findings of the Department's inspectorate tell us we urgently need to address this and remove the barriers that prevent a school leader from being a leader of teaching and learning.

The middle-management tier in school was negotiated very much around tasks. We need to look to a time when all teachers accept that they have a leadership responsibility. I take the point that it must begin from the initial teacher education. We are probably at the cusp of a new framework when the Teaching Council legislation is commenced. The legislation sets out the criteria for the initial teacher education courses and the criteria and a register for teacher registration. We are moving to a time when teachers will have to engage in compulsory CPD, which must and will involve leadership because our teachers begin by being leaders in their classrooms. We are moving into that space when we discuss the CPD framework that will take us into the future.

We are involved in conversations with IPPN and NAPD around that continuum of support for principals. We want to ensure we have people coming into principal roles who have some qualification. Whether one can make that compulsory is negotiable. There is a high participation rate in these courses. We have the initial training that aspiring principals do, an induction course and the development that takes place afterwards. More than 1,100 people participate in those courses each year. In conversation with IPPN and NAPD we want to identify deficits in the system. From our conversations and some mapping work we have done regarding what we do here and the best systems internationally, one of the clear deficits we have identified is around coaching and mentoring.

We are giving very active consideration to how we can support that. There is already a very successful induction and mentoring piece being developed in the context of teachers when they leave college and go into schools. That is giving very positive feedback as to the system's effectiveness. That is something we are looking at.

Other members of the delegation may want to take up one or two other matters. We are very anxious. It is a priority for the Department. We will be looking at it in all its facets in terms of role, clarity and setting boundaries. Clearly any leaders need to know who is doing what and there should be ownership by people who have responsibility.