The Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairi Quinn T.D., today published the Education (Amendment) Bill which provides for a number of important changes to the Education Act 1998 and the Teaching Council Act 2001.
This Bill provides for the amendment of the Education Act 1998 and the amendment of the Teaching Council Act 2001 in relation to a number of education matters including arrangements for the employment, in certain exceptional and limited circumstances, of persons who are not registered teachers under the Teaching Council Act 2001.
It is the aim of the Minister that all teachers in schools be registered with the Teaching Council and therefore fully qualified.
Commenting on the Bill the Minister said that "This amendment balances the ultimate aim of ensuring that registered teachers are employed at every opportunity with the day-to-day practicalities of safeguarding the employment rights of existing permanent employees, and those rare occasions which may lead to school closure at little or no notice and the impact this has on parents and their children."
"This amendment paves the way for commencement of Section 30 of the Teaching Council Act 2001 which will ensure that only those registered with the Teaching Council have a right to access paid employment as teachers in our schools. I would strongly encourage any person employed as a teacher, and who does not hold current registration with the Teaching Council, to apply for registration without delay." the Minister said.
The Bill also provides for changes to Sections 23 and 24 of the Education Act. These changes are designed to provide legal certainty on the capacity of the Minister for Education and Skills and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to ensure that redeployment arrangements for teachers can continue to meet in a fully effective manner the requirement of the current fiscal situation that teachers who are surplus are redeployed to vacancies in other schools while at the same time ensuring that the Department can continue to fully honour the commitment in the Croke Park Agreement which provides for flexible redeployment arrangements instead of redundancy.
The Education (Amendment) Bill 2011 is available to download on the Oireachtas website:
http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/
Notes for Editors
The main provisions of the Bill are:
· Provision is also made for the employment, in certain exceptional and limited circumstances, of persons who are not registered teachers under the Teaching Council Act 2001. This allows for the commencement of Section 30 of the Teaching Council Act 2001, which prohibits the payment of persons employed as a teacher but not registered with the Teaching Council, while safeguarding the rights of existing employees and allowing for specific exceptional circumstances which could otherwise lead to school closure.
· An amendment of Section 33 of the Teaching Council 2001 which will allow the Teaching Council to make regulations for the purposes of renewal of registration which may provide for the form and manner in which an application for renewal is made; the documentary and other evidence required to be submitted with the application; and the conditions for renewal of registration, which may include, for example, completion of programmes of continuing education and training or evidence of character and teaching experience.
· An amendment of Section 38 of the Teaching Council 2001 to clarify the fact that the Teaching Council may accredit programmes of teacher education and training provided by institutions of higher education and training, where it is appropriate to do so.
· An amendment of the definition of ‘support services’ contained in the Education Act 1998 in order to clarify the position in relation to the delivery of speech therapy services and other health and personal services to students of school-going age. The proposed provisions will not impact on the availability of speech therapy services for children with special educational needs through the HSE. The Department is committed to the co-ordinated delivery of services to families of children with special educational needs. The Department will continue to work with the Interdepartmental Cross Sectoral team, (comprising of representatives of: the Departments of Education and Skills, Health and Children, the National Council for Special Education and the Health Service Executive) to plan for co-ordinated service delivery across the disability sector.
· Repeal of the Scientific and Technological Education (Investment) Fund Act 1997. This Fund, which was set up to provide financial resources for the provision of education and vocational training in the fields of science and technology through a Scientific and Technological Education (Investment) Fund managed by the Minister for Finance has now been fully spent. The Act is being repealed in order to end the requirement for the production of annual reports and accounts for a fund which is defunct. This section also repeals, for the sake of completeness, the Scientific and Technological Education (Investment) Fund (Amendment) Act 1998 which made some technical amendments to the 1997 Act.
· Amendment of the Education Act 1998 to provide for the formal abolition of the Educational Disadvantage Committee (EDC). This will implement an element of the Budget 2008 decision on the rationalisation of agencies. The EDC was established in March, 2002 under Section 32 of the Education Act, 1998. Members were appointed to the Committee for a period not exceeding three years. The three year term of office of the EDC expired on 30 June 2005 and the Committee’s final report, ‘Moving Beyond Educational Disadvantage’, was submitted to the Minister on 19 August 2005 and published in December 2005. The Committee was not re-established.
· A revised text of sections 23 and 24 of the Education Act 1998. The changes in relation to the redeployment and appointment of teachers and in relation to procedures that provide for appointment and redeployment or suspension and dismissal of teachers and other staff have a clear statutory basis that means these matters can ultimately be determined by the Minister. The intention is to put in place or revise as need be such procedures by reaching agreement with the relevant interests. However, the amendment to the legislation is being made to ensure that no individual party can impose a veto on necessary change.