Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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301. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will provide clarification on a matter (details supplied) on the extension of an allowance; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10603/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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At the outset, I want to acknowledge the key role played by student teachers in supporting our schools throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in providing substitution cover. This support was vitally important to ensure that our schools remained open for pupils.

In this regard, the Deputy will be aware that a framework for adapted School Placement arrangements was developed by the Department of Education and the Teaching Council, together with the relevant Initial Teacher Education (ITE) providers, in order to ensure that student teachers at primary level could continue to support schools during periods of planned school placement from the beginning of January up to the February mid-term break. During this period, student teachers continued to be located in their host school for school placement, but were also available to support other schools where required.

The Education Stakeholders, including the Department of Education, HEIs providing initial teacher education (ITE) and the Teaching Council, have continued to work together to maintain the integrity of the students’ ITE experiences and support students in satisfactorily completing their ITE programmes.

The adapted School Placement arrangements were an exceptional measure introduced as part of a suite of measures to support schools to minimise the risk associated with COVID-19 and in light of the prevalence of the Omicron variant, with the understanding that these would be unwound as soon as possible. The Department understands that student teachers will now return to experiencing the more typical School Placement arrangements, and associated assessments, which are a critical part of their ITE programmes.

While the adapted School Placement arrangements are no longer in place, student teachers will, if they wish, still be able to support schools by providing substitution cover when they have availability outside of their ITE programme requirements.