Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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43. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will address the continued use of the JobBridge scheme to employ teachers within schools. [43697/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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JobBridge is a national internship scheme administered by the Department of Social Protection. The scheme was introduced to provide a pathway to appropriate employment, training and education opportunities for a specific cohort of jobseekers on the Live Register. Changes to the scheme are therefore a matter for the Department of Social Protection in the first instance. In this regard I understand that Department is currently undertaking a planned independent evaluation of the scheme to determine its suitability, effectiveness and relevance as an activation programme. The outcome of this evaluation will provide an evidential basis upon which they can determine how the scheme may be improved.

Recognised Schools and Education and Training Boards may participate in the scheme if they wish under Department of Education and Skills Circular 46/2011. An internship must not cause an existing member of staff to be displaced from the school or be used to fill a current vacancy in the school. Interns are in addition to any staffing allocation a school/ETB has.

In this regard it should be noted that Budget 2016 allows for an improvement in the staffing schedule in primary schools by one point, from 1 teacher for every 28 pupils to 1 teacher for every 27 pupils. At post-primary the schedule will improve by 0.3 points, from 19:1 to 18.7:1. It is estimated that this measure and some other budgetary improvements in primary and post-primary schedules will result in an additional 300 posts at primary and 550 posts at post-primary.