Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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304. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if there are funding streams available for professional development courses for teaching staff to support them and enable them to upskill. [10610/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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My Department has a wide range of support structures in place across the primary and post primary sectors to enable teachers to meet the ever-evolving needs of the education sector and to support improvements in the quality of teaching and learning generally through the national teacher education support services and by local education centres.

The national teacher education support services are the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST), Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT), National Induction Programme for Teachers (NIPT) and the Centre for School Leadership (CSL). These support services and the national network of Education Support Centres provide a range of continuing professional development supports for schools and teachers.

My Department also funds the Teacher Fee Refund Scheme. This scheme is administered by Marino Institute of Education (MIE) on behalf of the Department and provides funding to serving teachers towards the cost of course participation and examination fees on successful completion of professional development courses that are directly relevant and of benefit to schools and that are subject to certification/award by an appropriate accreditation authority recognised by the Department.

Applications for funding under the Scheme are made retrospectively for a course undertaken during the previous academic year.

Following a review of the Teacher Fee Refund Scheme, in 2021 the Department announced that funding would be prioritised under the scheme for the following areas:

a.Upskilling for post primary teachers leading to registration with the Teaching Council in an additional subject, to support teacher supply at post-primary level

b.Inclusion and tackling disadvantage

c.Promoting well-being

d.Digital technologies in teaching, learning and assessment

e.Improving students’ literacy and numeracy

f. Curricular initiatives including pre-identified areas of systemic need endorsed by school management (identified in the annual circular relating to the period in which course/year of course is completed).

Recently published Circulars 0001/2022 and 0015/2021 relate to this Scheme.