Results 8,941-8,960 of 19,032 for speaker:Ruairi Quinn

Written Answers — Vocational Education Committees: Vocational Education Committees (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Vocational Education Committees (VECs) are employees of the VECs and are paid directly by the Committees which employ them. The Deputy should note that the CEO is not a member of the VEC. CEOs do not receive expenses for attendance at VEC meetings. However, travel and subsistence is payable in accordance with public sector norms to CEOs for their attendance...

Written Answers — Expenditure Reviews: Expenditure Reviews (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: A public service-wide review of allowances, announced by the Government as part of Budget 2012, is currently being led by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Under Circular 70/2011 teachers who had been engaged in a public sector teaching post on or before 4 December 2011 are eligible to retain the qualification allowances they were entitled to be in receipt of on that date. Such...

Written Answers — School Curriculum: School Curriculum (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: A revised Leaving Certificate curriculum in Irish began in all schools in September 2010 for first examination in 2012. The revised programme provides for an increase in the proportion of marks available for oral assessment to 40%, and is aimed at promoting a significant shift in emphasis towards Irish as a spoken language, where students can communicate and interact in a spontaneous way, and...

Written Answers — Value for Money Reviews: Value for Money Reviews (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: I am not in a position to give a publication date for the value for money review of small primary schools but I can confirm the review will be published. Work is well advanced and I expect that the report of the review should be available to me shortly. The review is being conducted in line with the standard procedures for the conduct of value for money reviews under the guidance of a...

Written Answers — Educational Disadvantage: Educational Disadvantage (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: On 11th January, I asked my Department for a report on the impact of the withdrawal of certain posts allocated under previous disadvantaged schemes in DEIS Band 1 and Band 2 primary schools. Due to conflicting and, in some cases, exaggerated numbers of posts being reported as potentially lost to schools it was necessary to obtain clarity with regard to the net effect of a range of factors on...

Written Answers — School Staffing: School Staffing (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: For the current academic year the National Induction Programme for Teachers (NIPT) has 45 trained mentors at Post Primary level who are registered and active with the Programme. Since September an additional 12 Post Primary teachers have received training as mentors. There are an additional 74 Post Primary teachers currently undergoing training as mentors and another 46 Post Primary...

Written Answers — School Staffing: School Staffing (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: I propose to take Questions Nos. 42 and 57 together. There is no increase in the staffing schedule general average of 28:1 for the allocation of classroom teachers at primary level. However, there is a phased increase in the pupil threshold for the allocation of classroom teachers in small primary schools. As part of the Budget decisions announced, the number of pupils required to gain and...

Written Answers — Third Level Courses: Third Level Courses (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: A first-stage process evaluation of Springboard, which includes a report on the initial outputs of the programme, is available on the HEA's website: www.hea.ie. It shows that the programme has been very successful to date in reaching its target cohorts. At the end of December 2011, 4,305 people were participating in Springboard programmes. 72% of participants were male and 77% were aged...

Written Answers — Schools Refurbishment: Schools Refurbishment (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: I propose to take Questions Nos. 45 and 56 together. As the Deputy is aware, an application for planning permission forms part of the site acquisition process for the school to which they refer. A draft design for the school was discussed with the school authority and the design is currently being revised in light of those discussions. The current position of all projects on the school...

Written Answers — Higher Education Standards: Higher Education Standards (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: I understand that the Deputy is referring to the Times Higher Education World Rankings published last October. International ranking systems and league tables of this nature need to be interpreted with caution as criteria between one set of rankings and another can have material differences on outcomes on different league tables. Furthermore, their focus on individual institutional...

Written Answers — Third Level Courses: Third Level Courses (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: The purpose of the system development reforms outlined in the National Strategy is to improve quality outcomes for all students and to enhance the capacity of the higher education system to meet growing future demand. On Monday 13th February, the HEA published a number of system development papers outlining key parameters for system development. Institutions have now been asked to consider...

Written Answers — Third Level Remuneration: Third Level Remuneration (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: The majority of employees in the third-level sector who continue to earn more than €200,000 per annum are Academic Medical Consultants, remuneration for whom falls in the main within the remit of the Minister for Health. Any changes to the terms and conditions of these consultants will have to be considered in the context of the Minister for Health's approach towards the remuneration of all...

Written Answers — Languages Programme: Languages Programme (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: The Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative has been a pilot scheme involving approximately 550 schools that has operated since 1998. The decision to end the scheme took account of a 2008 Report by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). The report identified serious issues with curricular overload at primary level. The NCCA's advice recommended for the present...

Written Answers — Educational Disadvantage: Educational Disadvantage (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: The Report on the impact, in terms of posts, of Budget measures on DEIS Band 1 and Band 2 urban primary schools that still had additional posts allocated under disadvantage schemes pre-dating DEIS, was published earlier this week. The report provides data on 140 DEIS Band 1 and DEIS Band 2 schools who were identified as being impacted by possible loss of posts, over and above their...

Written Answers — Languages Programme: Languages Programme (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: The Barcelona Conclusions are non-binding and express the views and intentions of the European Council. Individual member states are invited to adopt the approaches set out in the Conclusions insofar as is appropriate to their particular national priorities, circumstances and resources. My Department fully accepts the desirability of this approach as an EU policy direction. This does not...

Written Answers — Higher Education Grants: Higher Education Grants (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: The current economic climate requires difficult decisions to be made across all areas of public expenditure. However, given its centrality to future economic growth, the Government has sought to protect, in as far as possible, investment in research and development. This year my Department is providing some €38 million to support research activities across a range of programmes, including...

Written Answers — Languages Programme: Languages Programme (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: There are a range of foreign languages available on the curriculum in schools -- French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Arabic. Chinese and Portuguese are not on the curriculum. It is not possible in the current budgetary situation to expand the range of languages on the post primary curriculum. 81% of second level pupils study three languages, Irish, English and a...

Written Answers — Special Educational Needs: Special Educational Needs (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: The Deputy will be aware that the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is responsible, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs) for allocating resource teachers and Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) to schools to support children with special educational needs. The NCSE operates within my Department's criteria in allocating such support. This now...

Written Answers — Literacy Levels: Literacy Levels (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: I published the National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy among Children and Young People 2011 to 2020 in July 2011. The Strategy contains 41 actions and almost 180 sub-actions across 6 key areas. A high level implementation advisory group has been established to monitor strategy implementation. There has been significant progress in implementing the early actions of the Strategy...

Written Answers — School Staffing: School Staffing (23 Feb 2012)

Ruairi Quinn: A key part of the Government's overall budgetary strategy is a requirement to reduce the public sector payroll. This will continue to be the case until we close the gap between what we spend as a country and what we take in through taxes. Given that one third of all public sector employees work in the Education sector it is simply not possible to completely exempt staffing levels in education...