Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 69: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills if she will give details of the number of teachers who have received in-service teaching training in Meath in primary and post primary schools in the past five years; how often teachers receive this training on an annual basis; the schools built in Meath east in the past ten years; the annual breakdown of the figures; the schools that have had extensions in Meath in the past ten years; the annual breakdown of the figures; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38310/10]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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National in-service programmes are made freely available to all teachers nationwide and all teachers can also avail of elective courses delivered through the local education centre. Teachers are also able to attend courses in other locations in the national network of education centres.

In relation to national in-service programmes, seminars and workshops are generally offered to all teachers in the relevant sector or who are involved in teaching the subject/programme in question. Such seminars are often related to curricular change but they can also be associated with other system priorities, some recent examples of which include child protection guidelines and English as an additional language.

There is no set number of annual training days. The amount of training offered to teachers in any given year will depend on the programmes of professional development that are in place at that time, and the target cohort of teachers. For example, when current Primary School Curriculum was introduced some 10 years ago, all primary teachers were offered 6/7 days of in-service training per year as the curriculum was implemented. In the current school term at post-primary level, for example, teachers are being invited to professional development workshops with the Project Maths Development Team and the Second Level Support Service for Irish.

The number of days training a teacher receives on an annual basis depends on an individual teacher availing of the professional development opportunities that are relevant to his/her post or area of expertise.

Apart from the national roll-out of programmes associated with curricular change as outlined above, support services also aim to enable schools to become more self-sufficient in their own improvement and development, by responding to schools' and teachers' self-identified development needs. This may involve support advisors visiting a school, or small cluster of schools, and facilitating development sessions on a whole-school or smaller group basis. The quantity of such support availed of by a particular school will depend on whether the school has requested support, the nature of the support and on the capacity of the support service to respond to the need in question.

In County Meath, Navan Education Centre - one of 21 such full-time Centres throughout the country - provides support for teachers, schools, principals, Boards of Management and allied school personnel in counties Meath and Louth. The region has over 210 schools, both primary and post primary. Navan also gives professional ICT support to the schools and teachers of Co Cavan. In total the centre supports in the region of 4,000 teachers and allied school personnel. The Centre is the main venue for the majority of national in-service seminars for teachers from Meath, and it also provides a wide range of elective events for teachers, parents and boards of management in the Meath area. The Centre devises its own programme of elective courses, which is informed by the policies and priorities of the Department of Education and Skills, as well ongoing communication with schools in its catchment area.

The following table outlines the number of local professional development events that have been organised by Navan Education Centre from 2004 to 2009. Participants in these events include primary and post primary teachers and other school personnel. In relation to school building, a further table set out below outlines details of major capital works on new school buildings, extensions and refurbishments completed since 2002, as well as the capital projects currently underway or at tendering stage, in County Meath. The Department does not collate this data on a constituency basis.