Written answers

Thursday, 24 November 2011

Department of Education and Skills

School Staffing

5:00 pm

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 93: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if teachers who retire from teaching in the next three months will be eligible to be rehired as teachers until the end of the school year; if so, the reasons for same; the cost that such a decision would entail; the estimated number of young teachers that will not get employment as a result; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36815/11]

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Following discussions with the second level management bodies I have, in the last week, published an information note on the subject of re-employment of retiring teachers of post-primary examination classes. These measures will be confined to teachers teaching State examination classes in post-primary schools and do not apply to teachers with no exam classes or to primary school teachers.

Post-primary schools may re-employ teachers who retire between 1 December 2011 and 29 February 2012 and who, immediately before their retirement, have been teaching students preparing to sit the Junior or Leaving Certificate examinations in 2012. These teachers may be re-employed until the summer holidays for the teaching duties for which they were timetabled immediately before their retirement. Where a teacher's pre-retirement duties included both teaching and non-teaching duties, such as in the case of an Assistant Principal or Deputy Principal, the teacher may be re-employed for his or her teaching hours only. There is no additional cost of this measure. Those teachers who have retired would, in any event, receive their pension and lump sum. In the event that retired teachers were not re-employed for classes preparing for the Junior and Leaving Certificate then other teachers would be recruited to fill these teaching hours. Those retired teachers re-employed until the end of the teaching year will be paid at the reduced rate applicable to post Jan-2011 new entrant teachers.

I am aware that there are a large number of qualified and registered teachers who are unable to source work at the current time. I am also very alive to the pressures our young people are under to perform well in their State exams. I believe that the approach being adopted strikes the right balance between the needs of students who face into significant examinations, the retiring teachers who have invested a huge amount of time and effort in preparing students for their examinations and those teachers who are looking forward to the opportunities presented by the increased level of retirements at a time of constrained resources.

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