Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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Senators Buttimer and Norris have agreed to share time on this.

David Norris (Independent)
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I very much welcome the Minister. I know he has had to leave a Cabinet meeting and I really appreciate his presence in the Senate. I also very much appreciate the fact that the Leader has asked for time. I am happy to give him two of my four minutes.

This matter is about education centres, ECs, and the appointment of directors. Education centres lead and manage continuing professional development for primary and post-primary teachers. They also manage support services for the Department of Education and Skills, working specifically with teacher education services. There are 21 full-time ECs in Ireland. In developed countries, the position of director is permanent. The contract is for a five-year period in this country and the Minister proposes now to limit the appointment to one five-year period. Also, in August of this year on foot of a legal note indicating that no directives had been issued under section 37 of the Education Act 1998 to include regulations, he decided to include regulations. The Drumcondra EC was only alerted to the new regulations on 22 August, eight days before they took effect. It replied on 24 August but received no response from the Department. There was no official consultation. The effect of these amendments is to ensure directors would be limited to one five-year period in the post. Previously, in 2012, the then Minister had agreed that this policy was a mistake and should not be implemented. A subsequent Minister said the same and so did the Taoiseach.

Circular 11/02 from the Department of Education and Skills states that in the case of existing secondment to Department programmes, an application for a further extension may be considered. The Minister reappointed a director to the Teaching Council in May this year and, therefore, there is a clear contradiction. The result of the new regulation will be that by September 2018, some 18 of the 21 directors will have two years or less experience. As a result of this, corporate memory, connections, experience, knowledge and skill will all be lost. On a human level, one director relocated her house to a position one minute from DEC. She will now have to return to a school, which is many miles away, and she will also lose 15 years of pension entitlements. Eight directors will return after 15 years to an alien teaching environment. A reply from the Minister to a parliamentary question tabled by Deputy John Curran on 28 September is riddled with inaccuracies. For example, no account is taken of the fact that directors come from management ranks and not from teaching positions. Secondments were not required to be certified until 2007.

Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
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The Senator is leaving little time for Senator Buttimer.

David Norris (Independent)
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I am sure the Chair will be flexible.

I will give the Minister the document I have because I want him to examine the job description specifically, which is all about management and not at all about teaching. Will he revise the situation and allow for a director to apply for reappointment? I will give him the documents I have.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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As a teacher myself, I recognise the importance of professional curriculum development and ECs. As Senator Norris said, this matter is about not losing corporate knowledge. Being out of a school for five years is an eternity in the education world. This is about ensuring that we continue to have upskilling, training, and professional curriculum development, which is an integral part of our education system. ECs play a key, pivotal role in driving change and in upskilling and professional development. I know first hand of the professionalism, attention to duty and care of those who work in the professional development unit and in our ECs. It is important to make the post of director of EC permanent for one reason only, which is corporate knowledge. It is difficult to return to the classroom when one has been in a management position as a director of education.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senators for raising this. There is a good deal of misunderstanding in this area. These posts have always been on secondment. They were never designed to be permanent management posts and they were always renewed on a yearly basis. They have never been permanent positions and they are not management positions. The approach the Department has always taken is that it wants those who direct these centres to have recent education experience and to ensure they are drawn from and refreshed from the pool of people teaching in the classroom because the policy is that those who have that active and recent learning experience are best placed to develop the programmes that serve teachers.It has also been the policy that those teachers who have been in an education centre on a temporary secondment can go back to their school and enrich the environment. As the Senators are aware, the most important thing in any school is the quality of leadership and teaching. Those teachers who have had experience in these centres and have been exposed to the learning there can enrich the position of their own schools. That is important background to this. It was never intended that these would be permanent management positions. They have been consciously designed as drawing from active teachers for a period. The policy up to 2010 had allowed a year-on-year roll-on and it was decided at that point not just to reduce the number but to have five-year terms. I think that policy is correct. It allows that rotation, the return to the classroom and the refreshing of the people who are in it.

The Senator suggests there has been no consultation on this but that is not the case. This was introduced in 2010, seven years ago. People in those posts were allowed to get a new contract. At the end of that period, because people were concerned, there was a negotiation and agreement was reached that there would be a three-year phase where people would rotate out, and that would give time for succession planning. This was not taken up by many of those individuals and, as the Senators know, there has been a suggestion that the Department did not have an entitlement to execute the policy, which was that these are secondments, which are temporary in nature. Therefore, we have had to introduce a statutory instrument to ensure we do have that authority and that there is no doubt about the authority.

David Norris (Independent)
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I never said that the Minister did not have the authority.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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That policy has always been the policy but the statutory instrument and the regulations were not in place.

It is also important to say that many hundreds of teachers have rotated out on this basis. There are some directors who do not want to rotate out but we believe it is the right policy. Where we have replaced the directors, we have obtained very good people and there has not been disruption to the management of these centres. That has been in more than half of the centres, given ten have been replaced.

This is the right policy. I believe the investment in leadership and teacher upskilling is one of the most important investments we can make. It is a very dynamic environment where we want to continually see fresh blood coming through. The priorities change. It is now about rolling out digital and how people execute digital in the classroom whereas, at other times, it will be about assessment. For example, we now have the junior cycle, which now involves a portfolio of assessment and a move away from the rigid terminal examination model. All of that creates a need. At different times we need different capacities and the Department must have the flexibility to plan those capacities and deliver them in a flexible way.

It is important to note that the 21 education centres have been very valuable and have done very good work. However, I absolutely believe the approach we are taking is the right approach. I am undertaking a very detailed assessment of the whole CPD, as they call it in the jargon of the Department, both in terms of leadership and upskilling, in order to make sure the 3% of payroll which we invest in this, which is a substantial amount at over €100 million, is spent in the very best possible way. I want to get best practice. It is one of my ambitions that we would have an education and training service that is the best in Europe within a decade. I think we can do better in this area and it is an area I want to improve. I appeal to Senators. Moving back to saying these are management positions that should be there forever is not the way in which we can create a dynamic environment for supporting teachers to upskill and have that rotation in and out of classroom activity that is at the heart of the current policy.

David Norris (Independent)
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I thank the Minister for his reply, although I am rather disappointed with it. I am not looking to create a permanent post. All I am looking for, and I would like the Minister to consider this, is to allow the directors to reapply for a second five-year term. If they are particularly good or have particular skills, I think it would be in everybody's interest that they be allowed to apply a second time. I appeal to the Minister, in light of the documentation I am going to present to him, to consider just this - just to allow them to reapply, which does not mean they are going to get it. We should not apply a very strict, iron rule.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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My only concern is that we should not allow that corporate knowledge to be lost. I agree with Senator Norris. I have never looked for permanency but it is about that second five-year term. I agree with the Minister on the need for flexibility and to invest wisely and the 3% is a considerable amount of money. However, as the Minister knows, he is getting good people. While he is right to carry out an audit, I ask that we would have flexibility because it is very difficult for people, having been out of school for five years, to go back to school again.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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When this policy came in, other teachers who had been in the system for 15 years had to go back into the school room, and support was provided for the transition. Many of the directors have been in post for ten and sometimes 15 or 20 years. I do not think that is at all in accord with a secondment policy. Secondment is, by its nature, temporary. These are year-on-year renewals. We are willing to allow a second term where someone has returned to the classroom for a period and then comes back again, and I think that is quite acceptable. However, the idea that, effectively, we keep rolling on those who are there, and that what is designed as temporary becomes permanent by lack of ever intervening, is not a good way to manage this. We believe that having this renewal within the directors is the right policy. It has worked and we are getting very good people to come in and out, and to go back and enrich the school.

While I understand that people do not like disruption in their lives and so on, and would like a temporary secondment to become forever, that was never intended and we never made any such commitment. We will try to be flexible with the people involved. We have given extensions but we have reached the point where we have to have a policy that is workable and gives us the capacity, as a Department, to plan and execute what is a really important area of departmental work.

David Norris (Independent)
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Does this mean the Minister has not totally closed his mind to a possible second application?

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I have. That is not in the regulations, which provide for one five-year term. People can come back and apply for a second term but, as I understand it, that is after they have been back in the school environment. They can then have a second term on a second occasion.