A training programme for primary school boards in Co Clare will focus on health and safety issues, finance and the legal aspects of running a school.
Dr Kyran Kennedy, director of the Clare Education Centre, a teachers' centre in Ennis, said the programme was aimed at providing support for boards of management, teachers and parents' associations. More demands than ever were being placed on school boards, he said, and running a school was increasingly a complex task.
An eight-member school board includes two elected parents. The school patron nominates a further two members and the school principal and a staff representative also sit on the board. Two members are selected from the wider community.
The programme recognised "the crucially important contribution by voluntary boards of management to primary school education", Dr Kennedy said.
New primary boards of management had been appointed in early November. "We are here to help these new teams. Each management board has eight members, and we have invited the entire board from 20 schools to participate in the pilot workshops," he said.
The workshops have been devised by Dr Jim Bradley of Catalysis Consulting in Ennis. "The legal module will have a suitably qualified person while finance will be addressed by a financial expert," he said.
Dr Kennedy added that the Department would fund the training. "I am hopeful the work we are pioneering here will be used as a model for boards of management training in other parts of the country."