Mary Moran (Labour)
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I presume the Minister of State is taking this motion on behalf of the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy O'Sullivan. I brought this Commencement matter to the House to ask the Minister to clarify the position regarding teaching practice hours for teachers who are pursuing a master's degree in education and who already have contract hours in school. I have been contacted by several people who are in this predicament, who already have contract hours within a school and who are now required during the second year of the PME course to teach for a minimum of one and a half to two hours in an alternative school. As it stands, the Teaching Council requires all PME students, regardless of their university, to undertake teaching practice in two school settings. The alternative arrangement made for the students who are employed by a school one year before commencing the PME course allows for them to teach in a block of ten weeks for one and a half to two hours a week.

I have been contacted by principals and school management who say this will cause serious problems for them in that these teachers who are already contracted, some of them for 15 to 17 hours, will have to move to a second school, while maintaining their place in the first school, to teach for one and a half to two hours per week for a ten-week block. It also occurs during January and Easter, which is the time for every school when pre-examinations or mock examinations and oral examinations are going on.

For example, if a teacher who is teaching Irish and is contracted for 15 hours in one school has to leave the school to go and teach in a second school for one and a half to two hours a week, principals have informed me that they are now going to have to get substitute cover to cover the teacher for the hours for which they have to move to a second school. The whole thing is going to be very disruptive and unsettling for everybody involved: for the students who are pursuing the postgraduate degree in education; for the teaching staff; and especially for the pupils, some of whom might have these teachers for junior or leaving certificate Irish and who now find their teacher is going to be absent for a block of ten weeks to fulfil these criteria.

Will the Minister go back and have a look at this? There needs to be consultation between the Teaching Council and the Department again, to get something concrete, satisfactory and clear for the students who are pursuing this course.Many students remain unclear, as do some of the universities, as to exactly where this is going. They have ironed it out for students who have one school for one year, which is fine where they have gone in and had to do the minimum of four hours. However, a huge problem is being opened up for people who have already been employed with contract hours and everybody involved.

Mary Moran (Labour)
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As Senator Paschal Mooney said, one always gets the nub of the answer in the last paragraph of a reply. I am very disappointed because the reply does not reflect the question I asked on what arrangements are in place and how they will deal with the fact that a teacher who is employed in a school for a certain number of hours will now have to have substitute teaching hours. It is students who will lose out if a substitute teacher comes in to take the hours for somebody to allow them to move to another school for a minimum number of weeks. Something could be done to address that. While I appreciate and agree that it is the Teaching Council that needs to look at it, the Minister should be aware that there is a huge problem. It is going to be a much bigger problem as this course unfolds and more and more people come on stream every year who have hours. I will write to the Minister herself to take this up. I would appreciate if the Minister of State, Deputy Deenihan, would also pass this on to her.