Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 554: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the estimated cost of recruiting and training 4,000 additional teachers; and the estimated time this process would take. [12397/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I assume the Deputy is enquiring about primary teachers. There are currently 1,780 students graduating from primary teacher training courses each year. The main drivers of vacancies in schools are retirements and the creation of new posts. The expenditure in 2006 on the Colleges of Education is set out below. The other two Colleges of Education are funded by the Higher Education Authority (HEA). My Department does not fund Hibernia College.

Froebel College of Education €2,862,988

Colaiste Mhuire €4,148,408

Church of Ireland College of Education €2,121,576

The estimated cost of 4,000 primary teachers at €60,000 per post is €240 million. Provision of accommodation to cater for these additional teachers would cost in the order of €500m. This does not include provision for the additional costs which would arise if teacher numbers increased in terms of services and training for the additional teachers in the system. This would include the cost of additional inspectors required to carry out inspections (including probation), provision of additional in-service training and the additional administrative costs for the Department of Education and Science associated with processing payment of salary, pension etc for extra teachers. Neither does it include the additional costs on the capital side in terms of ongoing maintenance of any additional classroom accommodation provided. The salary cost given does not include provision for the necessary pension costs which would increase the salary cost by approximately 25%-30% per annum. Extra costs would also arise if a decision was made to provide additional teacher training places in the teacher education colleges.