To ask the Minister of Education to detail the average annual spend on teacher professional development, including associated support costs, in each of the last five years.

The Department does not hold a single, consolidated figure for the average annual spend on Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) for each of the last five years.

This reflects the way in which TPL is delivered across the education system. TPL comprises a wide range of activity delivered through multiple programmes and partners, with associated costs often embedded within wider budgets (including staffing, substitution cover, digital provision and school improvement activity).

TPL activity is delivered across:

Department-funded programmes;

the Education Authority, through its Education Directorate and Children and Young People’s Services Directorate;

arm’slength bodies and sectoral organisations (including CCEA, CCMS, NICIE, CnaG and ETI); and

school-level and teacher-led activity, including collaborative practice and professional inquiry.

Given the breadth of provision and the distributed nature of funding, much of which is embedded within wider programme expenditure, it is not currently possible to disaggregate and report a precise annual spend figure for TPL without undertaking a detailed, system-wide exercise and agreeing a common definition of what constitutes TPL.

However, since publishing my TransformED strategy in March 2025, I have provided significant investment in TPL. For the 2025/26 financial year, the Department provided a total of £8.9m on a range of TPL programmes and actions.