Organisational aspects

All teaching grades rendering a service in state schools are required to actively participate in Management-driven Community of Professional Educators (CoPE) sessions and are also encouraged to take part in self-sought continuous professional development (CPD) sessions provided that these may be undertaken during/or outside normal on site hours.

Management-driven COPE sessions include School Development Planning (SDP) and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) sessions. The management have at its disposition a maximum of 40 hours during normal school hours of which 12 hours are to be dedicated to whole school development planning sessions.  

 Self-sought CPD may be of three broad types:

1. Professional learning opportunities in a school /college setting;
2. Professional learning opportunities based on externally desinged programmes;
3. Professional learning opportunities based on self-development. 

This form of CPD allows for flexibility and relevance as it is the teacher who chooses the area of professional development.

Incentives, supporting measures and funding for participating in continuing professional development (CPD) activities

Accelerated progression for teachers

Teachers can accelerate to the next salary scale (from 8 to 6 years), if they cumulate an aggregate of 360 hours of recognized self-sought Continuous Professional Development (CPD) time over six (6) years (through the applicable scheme issued by the management). Provided that if such self-sought CPD is compensated through accelerated progression, any qualification arising from such hours may not be further compensated through any other form of qualification allowance. Teachers on different forms of paid leave will also benefit from this acceleration, with the exception of paid study leave for the specific professional development, which may not be availed of for accelerated progression purposes. Unpaid leave will not be considered as part of the reckonable experience. Moreover, teachers on maternity leave will benefit from a pro-rata reduction of expectation for CPD. Provided that, in the current absence of a mechanism that formally records teaching grades’ self-sought continuous professional development, upon signing of the agreement, serving officers shall on a notional basis have their years of satisfactory service deemed reckonable for the accelerated progression. Provided further, that new recruits shall be required to attend a pre-service as well as an in-service induction as established in the respective calls for application which is not to be considered as part of the self-sought CoPE.

Teachers can also benefit from a paid study leave scheme offered by the Ministry for Education. The scheme offers two separate categories of paid study leave, Category A (up to one scholastic year) and Category B (short-term).