Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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258. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will consider an appeal (details supplied) for the immediate establishment of a primary teacher supply panel in the south County Louth and east County Meath area; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36071/20]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Roadmap for the Full Return to School provides for comprehensive supports across a range of areas to allow for the safe reopening of schools. Among the supports provided is the extension of the Substitute Teacher Supply Panel.

My Department has worked closely with our Partners on expanding teacher supply panels. The base schools were first identified in collaboration with the INTO and Primary Management Bodies. The INTO and Primary Management Bodies made contact with these schools with a view to being a base for that location.

In forming the Supply Panel Clusters, the Department’s Geographical Information System (GIS) identified the receiving schools based on distance from the base school. The Supply Panel Teaching posts were allocated to each Supply Panel based on the number of schools in the cluster and the number of permanent teaching positions to be serviced by the scheme.

Currently, there are 115 Substitute Teacher Supply Panels nationwide, with almost 330 newly appointed Supply Panel teachers employed, providing substitute cover to almost 2,300 schools across the country. In relation to Co. Louth and Co. Meath there are 5 Supply Panels operating in these counties operating in over 90 schools.

These substitute Supply Panels are not the sole means whereby schools source substitutes but are set up to work alongside the existing methods of sourcing substitute teachers whether through a school’s own panel of regular substitutes or the National Substitution portal service as outlined in the Department Circular 45/2020.

The proficiencies of the current Supply panels will be monitored and will be reviewed by my Department at the end of the current academic year.