To ask the Minister of Education for her assessment of staffing pressures on schools due to close contact isolation regulations.

I appreciate the excellent work that our teachers have been undertaking during the unprecedented challenges that the pandemic has presented. Due to the current high community prevalence of COVID-19 in Northern Ireland, a large number of cases were being reported by schools and this caused distress and disruption for many as the new school term began.

As a result of the issues brought to my attention, my Department and the Department of Health (DoH) agreed that from 10 September the Public Health Agency (PHA) Contact Tracing Service would be the lead body for contact tracing of positive cases within the school setting.

This approach replaced the school-led process to identify close contacts of COVID-19 cases with a more targeted PHA-led approach, with support from school leaders in certain circumstances. The aim of this change was to reduce the potential for large numbers of pupils being required to self-isolate and reduce the amount of time spent by school staff on contact tracing.

This more targeted approach to the identification of close contacts of COVID-19 in schools has been introduced to ensure that children and young people are able to remain at school. It is important that children stay in school as much a possible but there is a balance to be struck in terms of risk. We also need to ensure that we do what we can to stop the spread of the virus and reduce the number of positive cases by identifying individuals who have had the closest contact with the case and are at highest risk of getting COVID-19.

My Department provides guidance to schools under advisement from DoH / PHA but it does not have any practical role in the day to day running of individual schools. That is the role of the Board of Governors (BoG) and leadership team of each school with advice and guidance from their employing authority e.g. the Education Authority for controlled schools or the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools for maintained schools.

It is a matter for each BoG to determine the staffing complement for their school and for the principal to seek substitute cover when necessary. There are currently circa 8,000 substitute teachers registered on the Northern Ireland Substitute Teachers’ Register as available for teaching work in schools.