Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)
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Question 85: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if her attention has been drawn to the decision by the joint managerial body not to release teachers for oral, practical and in-service training from September 2005; the steps she intends to take arising from this decision in view of the possible disruption to exams; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19661/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I am aware that the joint managerial body has stated that it will advise its member schools not to release teachers for examinations — oral and practical — and in-service training from September 2005. The JMB and the other management bodies have raised the need for new arrangements to be put in place for activities such as the examinations and in-service training to ensure that they take place outside of school time because it is considered that current arrangements seriously disrupt schools and create major difficulties for school authorities.

Sustaining Progress, the social partnership agreement 2003-05, which set out the modernisation agenda for teachers, acknowledged that existing in-service training delivery arrangements are a cause of disruption in schools which may impact on students. Sustaining Progress also indicated that there was agreement among the education partners that the present in-service training delivery is unsatisfactory and that new arrangements need to be developed and agreed. As provided for in the agreement, discussions are in train with the school management authorities and the teacher unions to address the need for new arrangements and to agree a new model for the delivery of in-service training. The issues surrounding the oral and practical examinations are also being explored in the context of these discussions.

As an initial step, however, a number of significant developments have been put in place by my Department which have made progress in diminishing the impact of in-service training on school life. Among these developments have been the establishment of a co-ordination committee for national programmes-support services at post-primary level which has developed a nationwide calendar of in-service training provision to avoid undue disruption in an individual school. The work of this committee will feed into the biannual second level support service brochure and ongoing school-specific Education Centre calendar, both of which highlight the in-service training available for individual schools thus enabling management authorities to ensure that any disruption is minimised.

There would be serious implications for students if there was a refusal to release teachers for exams. The process of Sustaining Progress is designed to ensure that such difficulties can be discussed and avoided by proper engagement by all parties.