Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent)
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96. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if his Department has had discussions regarding to the changing of existing academic contracts in order to impose a mandatory contract hours element and if so, with whom; if this will distinguish between the university and the institute of technology sector; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41693/13]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Changes to academic contracts were discussed and agreed in the context of negotiations on the Public Service Agreement 2010 – 2014 (Croke Park Agreement) and more recently the Public Service Stability Agreement 2013 – 2016 (Haddington Road Agreement). These changes have resulted in the delivery of additional hours by academic staff to facilitate educational activities, which allow Universities and Institutes of Technology to cope with the reduction in staff numbers while dealing with an increase in the student population.

In Institutes of Technology lecturing staff provide an additional hour per week in timetabled periods of availability to students. Lecturing staff are also available for an extra two hours flexibility per week resulting in the delivery of in excess of 150,000 lecturing hours annually. Where previously, if an Institute was closed on a church holiday, it will now be open and academic staff may be timetabled for normal teaching hours on these days.

In the University sector academic staff are providing an additional hour per week to facilitate teaching and learning, resulting in the delivery of in excess of 100,000 lecturing hours per annum. Under the Haddington Road Agreement academic staff in universities will work an additional seventy-eight hours per annum. This additional time will be deployed through Workload Allocation Models to maximize savings and productivity by achieving more effective deployment and utilisation of academic staff resources.