Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 511: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if trained secondary teachers are eligible to take on temporary full-time posts in primary schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [2834/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The recruitment and appointment of teachers to fill vacancies in an individual primary school is a matter for the board of management of the school concerned. Unqualified personnel should only be employed in exceptional circumstances and when all avenues for recruiting qualified personnel have been exhausted. Boards of management of schools were advised of this in primary circular 15/05 which issued to all school authorities in May 2005.

Qualifications recognised for the purposes of teaching at second level are not accepted for the purpose of recognition to teach in a permanent capacity in primary schools. At primary level, teachers are class teachers rather than subject specialists, and must be qualified to teach the range of primary school subjects to children aged four to 12 years. To obtain recognition to teach in mainstream primary schools, persons holding qualifications recognised for teaching at second level must successfully complete a recognised postgraduate primary conversion course.

However, under a temporary scheme currently being operated by my Department, which was introduced some years ago to address the shortage of qualified teachers at primary level, teachers holding qualifications recognised for teaching at second level are remunerated at the trained rate of pay when they take up substitute or temporary positions in primary schools. Teachers holding qualifications recognised for teaching at second level are also entitled to restricted recognition to teach in special primary schools where a proportion of the pupils attending the special school are of post-primary age, that is, 12 years or older, and where second level programmes, such as the junior certificate schools programme or the leaving certificate applied programme, are provided by the school. If appointed to such posts, the teachers concerned are placed on the trained teachers' common basic scale.