Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe has announced that the number of teachers involved in training and support for subject development, school leadership, planning, and curriculum development is to be cut from 250 to 150 from September 2010.

Teachers wishing to remain in the support services will have to re-apply and be interviewed, while those who are not re-appointed will either return to their previous teaching positions or retire.

Minister O'Keeffe told Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes that many of the support services were being amalgamated to save money.

"My department is currently making arrangements for a reduction in the number of teachers on secondment to the professional development support services in the context of reduced availability of public funding and the need to reduce the public sector pay bill," the minster said.

Support across a range of educational areas would instead be provided by multidisciplinary regional teams working in co-operation with the network of education centres from this coming September, he added.

But Mr Hayes said that important work, such as subject development, leadership in schools, and career development, would be jeopardised following the cutbacks. In addition, temporary teachers could become unemployed with the return of seconded teachers.

"This move will make it more difficult to improve teacher quality and to develop a proper cohort of educational specialists whose task it is to develop the potential of our primary and post-primary teachers," Mr Hayes said. (Source: Irish Independent)