Teachers’ supervision and substitution hours may be reduced
Under a scheme to cover absences on uncertified sick leave or when teachers take students on extra curricular or sports trips, schools are allocated funding for 37 hours of substitution or yard supervision for every full-time teacher employed at the school.
But for each teacher who does not wish to do up to 37 hours of these duties in the year, for a payment of almost €1,800, the school has previously been entitled to pay temporary teachers or outside personnel to cover those absences.
In a school with 30 permanent teachers, for example, where 28 of them sign up to the supervision and substitution (S&S) scheme, the school was allocated money for 74 hours (37 hours x 2) of S&S by temporary staff.
But in previous years, schools were not asked to account for this money and instead carried any unused funding over for the following year.
Following restrictions since January on the level of school business for which cover would be provided and on uncertified sick leave, schools were more careful about how the S&S scheme was used and the number of school business absences teachers could take. But when the Department of Education asked schools in August for the number of non-staff S&S hours they used in the last school year, they were also told that they would only be allowed the same amount for the coming year.
Ciarán McCormack, who recently completed a year as president of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD), said it was unfair to notify schools of this development after the academic year ended.
“Schools were being prudent in trying to restrict the use of money for substitution so they could maybe keep it to cover teachers on school business that they might need to cover during this school year,” said Mr McCormack, principal of St Paul’s College, Raheny in Dublin.
“Now they are being penalised for their efforts. It means schools will still be restricted – or even more than last year – in the level of school business they can allow teachers out on, which can be very important things like drama events, art exhibitions and sports,” he said.
A report by taxpayers’ watchdog the Comptroller and Auditor General in July, based on an examination of seven second level schools, found that teachers were only called on to work an average of 80% of the S&S hours they signed up for.
The scheme has been in place in the country’s 4,000 primary and second level schools since 2003. In total, the scheme cost the Department of Education €90 million in 2007.
