Ms M?ir?n N? Ch?ileachair:

On the CPD piece, I think that a five-day summer course is not enough, but it is preferable to putting a teacher into the classroom on 1 September and taking him or her out three weeks later to engage in some kind of induction that could have been done in May or June when student teachers become available in order that there could be substitute cover, and the teacher could be released for the week before he or she starts the job. It is a question of the timing around that piece.

We need to look at postgraduate qualifications. They are completely funded in other countries. Hundreds of teachers across this country pay out of their own pockets to upskill themselves or do it in their own time because we do not have enough State-funded provision for them.