Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)

I am taking this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Mary Coughlan.

The Department of Education and Skills and other Departments, in this current difficult economic environment, are open to looking creatively at options that provide benefits to the system and to individuals seeking to enhance their skills or to gain valuable work experience where they are not employed. As the House is aware, much has been done in this regard already, such as the FÁS work placement programme and the €32 million labour market activation fund.

The FÁS work placement programme provides unemployed individuals with up to nine months valuable work experience in an organisation in the public, private or the community and voluntary sectors. The programme is designed to keep participants close to the labour market while providing them with the opportunity to increase their employability. To date there have been 2,022 participants who have commenced their placement under the programme.

From an upskilling perspective, the Department is providing in excess of 160,000 training and employment places this year for the unemployed. The majority of this provision is delivered primarily through FÁS. However, the labour market activation fund will deliver approximately 12,000 places. This fund was launched to assist in the creation of training and education provision for specific priority groups among the unemployed, including the under 35s and those who are long term unemployed. The programmes delivered under the fund aim to provide participants with the skills to meet current and future skills requirements of the economy thereby improving their prospects of securing employment in the future.

In terms of graduate teachers, the significance of teacher quality is well supported by research which indicates that the most important factors in positively influencing student outcomes are the quality of teachers and the quality of their teaching. We are all aware of the rapid changes in Irish society in recent decades and the recent dramatic changes in our economic circumstances. These changes underline the need to provide our children and students with the education and skills to ensure that they have the flexibility to adapt to take on various roles during their adult life.

We are fortunate that initial teacher education programmes here continue to attract high achieving applicants at school leaving level, and entry to post-graduate courses is competitively contested, attracting candidates with a wide range of backgrounds, including some discovering a vocation for teaching having started their working lives in other professions. The teachers that graduate from initial teacher education programmes are recognised as being fully qualified to teach in our schools, and our teachers and education system generally are widely admired and lauded internationally.

That said, there is always room for improvement, and we cannot become complacent. The Department of Education and Skills therefore also operates a wide range of initiatives which link the initial stage of the continuum of teacher education with induction and continuing professional development. Of particular relevance to recently qualified teachers at primary and post-primary level are the national induction programmes freely available nationwide through the network of education centres. The Deputy may be interested to know that significant numbers of newly qualified teachers who have not obtained a post are currently taking part in this modular programme.

In tandem with this, teachers, those serving as well as those not currently in employment, are more and more identifying areas in which to pursue further studies, for example, in areas of education which hold a particular interest for them, or where they identify a need in themselves or related to their school environment. This is to be encouraged, and third-level institutes offer a range of programmes that are of relevance to qualified teachers at all stages of their career. In practical terms, the Deputy may be aware of the opportunities that are already in existence for graduate teachers, and for other disciplines too, to progress along the qualifications framework with financial assistance from the State. Financial assistance is available to students under the means tested maintenance grant schemes, which are administered by the local authorities and vocational education committees on behalf of the Department.

Students entering approved courses for the first time are eligible for grants where they satisfy the relevant conditions as to age, residence, means, nationality and previous academic attainment. However, financial assistance is also available to eligible candidates who already hold an undergraduate or postgraduate qualification and who wish to enter a further postgraduate course, at a higher level, which represents progression from the level at which the first qualification was attained. The progression route, for grant purposes, is primary degree to higher diploma or postgraduate diploma to masters degree to PhD.

We must all be committed to maintaining and improving the standard of teaching and education for all so that Ireland can work towards turning our economic fortunes around and placing ourselves at the front of the global knowledge economy. There are opportunities for new teachers to continue their professional development and this Government will continue to support this objective.

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