Career Breaks Scheme (ref. CL 22/99)
This scheme provides an opportunity for a Permanent Wholetime Teacher or a Regular Part-time Teacher with a Contract of Indefinite Duration to take a Career Break for a period of up to 5 years. The objectives of the Career Breaks Scheme are to provide new employment opportunities in the teaching sector and to facilitate teachers who wish to take time out for personal or business reasons. A career break may be allowed for most purposes such as child-rearing, other domestic responsibilities, starting a business, educational purposes and travel abroad.
Policy on Career Breaks
The Board of Management is required to develop a policy for granting career breaks specific to the needs of the particular school. In developing a policy, the Board should take account of the objectives of the Scheme, and have due regard for any difficulties that might be created by permitting a number of career breaks and/or other non statutory leave of absence at the same time. Over and above all other considerations, the welfare and educational needs of the pupils must take precedence.
Length of Career Break
A career break is special leave without pay for a period of not less than one school year and not more than five school years.
In exceptional circumstances, the Board of Management may authorise a teacher to commence a career break during the course of a school year, but, in this case, the period of special leave will terminate not earlier than the end of the subsequent school year.
NOTE: A teacher on career break for a total of five years must resume full-time teaching duty for a minimum period of one school year before s/he may be granted leave of absence for study purposes.
Application Procedure
An application for a career break, including details of duration and purpose, must be submitted to the Board of Management not later than 1st March prior to the school year in which it is proposed to commence the career break. Applications for extensions and notification of intention to return to teaching must also be submitted by the 1st March.
A lesser period of notice may be accepted by the Board in exceptional circumstances.
It should be noted that career breaks are not available to teachers after reaching the age of sixty.
Filling of Vacant Teaching Posts
Posts vacated by teachers on career breaks may be filled on a temporary basis from school-year to school-year provided the posts can be accommodated within the school’s normal staffing allocation. If this is not the case, the Department’s written approval is required to fill a “vacancy” created by a career break. Substitute teachers engaged in these circumstances must be issued with Fixed Term Contracts which clearly state that they will terminate on the return of the teacher on career break.
Boards should note that teachers on career break are precluded from taking up an appointment as a Permanent Wholetime, Temporary Wholetime or Regular Part-time teacher within the State. They are also precluded from engaging in substitute teaching except on an intermittent or casual basis.
Health Declaration
Where a teacher, appointed or re-appointed to a permanent post after the 1st August, 1998, is on career break for two years or more and plans to resume teaching duties, s/he must undergo a medical “Fitness to Teach” assessment in accordance with procedures set down in DES Circular Letter 65/2008. Similar arrangements apply where a career break of less than two years is preceded by a period of exceptional ill health.
Teachers appointed as PWT prior to 1st August 1998 may be required by the Board to undergo a fitness to teach assessment prior to resuming teaching duties where the period of absence exceeds two full years.