Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 1 March 2017
21. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Education and Skills his plans regarding the issue of teacher supply; the reason the interim report on teacher supply has not been followed up; and if his attention has been drawn to the details of the secondary teachers who are qualifying and the subjects in which they are qualifying and the impact this inaction has on plans for the education sector. [10619/17]
View answerThis question raises another crucially important issue in the field of education, and one that it is fair to say has been completely ignored by the Department over the past number of years. It is hardly mentioned in the various action plans. Indeed, any action the Minister wants to take within the schools field in the Department of Education and Skills is utterly predicated on this issue of teacher supply. Do we have enough teachers coming into the system? Do we have enough teachers in particular subjects? Does anybody in government know what subjects teachers are qualifying in?
Between last September and next September, we will have employed 4,600 extra teachers. We are putting teachers back into our school process and this means that teachers, who were emigrating and not able to find places, are finding places in our schools.
A technical working group was set up by the Teaching Council to formulate advice on teacher supply. The group produced an interim report which was published in July 2015. The interim report identified the significant challenges in developing a model of workforce planning for teachers in Ireland. Among the difficulties identified were gaps in data in the dispersed Irish model, the mixture of pathways into teaching and the significant levels of migration. The group also observed that it is a more complex task at post-primary because there is currently no central mechanism for matching the overall subject need requirements of schools with output from the education providers and, in addition, schools have significant autonomy in relation to the mix of subjects and choices they provide for students.
At that point the group indicated that it was too early to make recommendations. The technical working group continued its work and submitted a final report, which included 14 recommendations, together with some additional advice by the council, to my predecessor, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, in December 2015. The report sets out an approach to planning which scopes out the work necessary to develop a model for teacher supply in the medium to longer term. The approach provides for the identification, collection and validation of data from a range of sources to be followed by a period in which a model for projecting demand and supply of teachers is developed and tested. This work will involve consultation so that there is buy in from relevant stakeholders, including teacher education providers.
The report recognises that the implementation of its recommendations will have significant resource implications, including staffing, and I will not be in a position to progress this aspect in the current year. In the Action Plan for Education for 2017, I have committed to the publication of the report in the first quarter together with the actions necessary for the implementation of its recommendations. This approach will provide further clarity for addressing this complex issue.
The Minister is telling the House that not only his predecessor, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, but he sat on this crucial issue and the Minister and the Department do not have a clue what subjects teachers are qualifying in. When the Minister comes out with his announcements, for example, coding will be the next big thing, languages are very important or we must emphasise STEM subjects, he has no way of knowing that there will be teachers to teach those subjects. Not only is that bad from a national point of view, but there are teachers who continue to be largely unemployed because there are too many teachers in their subject area. There are other subject areas where, as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will be aware, i meánscoileanna sa Ghaeltacht agus sna Gaelcholáistí, tá sé an-deacair múinteoirí a fháil a bhfuil in ann múineadh trí Ghaeilge. There is no planning whatsoever.
The Minister has admitted he is sitting on a report which recommends action on this but he has not taken any action. That means that everything he has proposed or planned regarding second level in particular is nullified. He must take action and get to grips with this matter.
The Deputy is grossly exaggerating the position. The truth is that the Teaching Council, having looked at this issue, was unable to make a recommendation because of its complexity. It is now seeking to ensure that data sources are identified and that information not being collected is collected. It has indicated the difficulty that exists. There are genuine problems. There is not a database of subject choices. Some people who come into education do subjects and then decide later on to do a master's degree in education. Identifying what is supply and demand work planning is a difficult issue but it does not hold back the introduction of new initiatives.
In terms of new teachers and initial training, we are ensuring that new teachers are fully briefed in the area of new curriculum development. We have continuous professional development, which ensures that teachers who will be teaching a curriculum that is changing will have the support to implement those changes. As has always been the case, work will continue to be done with teachers to make sure they are upskilled to the maximum level possible. We need to examine this because it is not satisfactory that, for example, we do not have enough physics teachers to teach physics.
That is my point. It is not satisfactory that we do not have enough physics teachers but the Minister is doing nothing about it. He is almost putting his hands up and saying he cannot do anything about it. Of course he can. The organisations responsible for training our secondary teachers must be given some directions. Let us be honest. A student with a 2.2 degree in a subject which very few teachers teach is more valuable than somebody with a first class honours degree in a subject that too many teachers teach. That is a fact. The Minister has to get to grips with this issue. It is not good enough to blame the colleges or the Teaching Council. The Minister is responsible for this, and he must get a grip on it because he is the one going around announcing plans to have children trained up in mathematics and coding.
The Minister referred to upskilling. He cannot upskill a teacher who does not exist. That is the problem. Some of these teachers simply are not available. The Minister appears to be sitting on an unpublished report. He tells me there are no recommendations regarding this but I am shocked that the report has been sitting on a shelf for the past year and a half. It is shocking, disgraceful and a shame on the administration of the education system. How will the young teachers who cannot get a job because there are too many of them in a particular subject feel about that, and also the schools that cannot get teachers for other subjects? There is a complete mismatch in that regard and it appears that nothing is being done about it.
We continue to train teachers. We have 1,250 teachers coming out of the colleges at primary level and 1,750 people completing training at post-primary level. We are continually training additional teachers to meet the needs in our schools, but the Deputy is right. We need to refine that model to try to match more closely, for example, the emergence of physics. We have never had enough physics graduates going into teaching. We have set that as an objective to try to get more physics graduates into teaching.
There is no way of doing that.
What the Teaching Council has been asked to advise on is a workforce planning model for the entire teaching profession. Clearly, the data from its analysis of this is simply not available. This is not a matter of an unwillingness to put one's hands on data. This is going back to the origination of data to find new data and then to try to put it into a system that will allow workforce planning. It says that will take years to complete. It is not something that can be done instantly. That is the-----
It would simply be a matter of the Minister directing someone to train a certain number of physics teachers.
I think the Deputy is trying to shout me down.
