Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 11 November 2020
135. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Education the steps she is taking to put in place a greater number of second level substitute teachers for certain subjects for which there is a shortage of substitutes - for example, biology, maths, physics and home economics - in order that students currently in sixth year are not at a disadvantage when they take the leaving certificate in 2021; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35650/20]
View answerPost primary management bodies and schools have, in recent years, reported difficulties in recruiting teachers of particular subjects (e.g. STEM, modern foreign languages, Irish, Home Economics) as well as substitute teachers.
The Steering Group on Teacher Supply was established in my Department in 2018. The Steering Group is leading on the identification of issues, the development of a programme of actions on teacher supply and the oversight of its implementation.
The Teacher Supply Action Plan was published in November 2018. The Plan contains a range of actions in four policy areas identified through the work of the Steering Group and engagement with stakeholders.
A number of additional measures have recently been put in place to support the supply of substitute teachers. These include, for the 2020/21 school year, suspending the restriction on the number of days that teachers on career break may be employed and, for the first time, allowing teachers who are job sharing to work additional hours.
The Teaching Council has also worked on a range of measures to increase the supply of registered teachers. These include, at the start of the school year, contacting the estimated 6,000 registered teachers who were not teaching in schools to encourage their participation to support the return to school by making themselves available to fill substitute or other posts. Following from the Teaching Council’s campaign, and also awareness raising by the Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN), the number of post primary teachers registered with Sub Seeker, the online substitute teacher recruitment portal developed by IPPN and the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD), increased from 475 in March 2020 to approximately 1,600 currently. The development of Sub Seeker follows from an action in the Teacher Supply Action Plan.
In addition, following engagement with the Teaching Council, higher education institutions providing post-primary Professional Master of Education (PME) programmes introduced flexibility in their course delivery to increase the amount of time which student teachers on school placement can provide for supervision and substitution, outside of their placement hours.
The Teaching Council also made regulations which allow, on an exceptional and once-off basis, teachers who have qualified outside of Ireland but who have not completed the required period of induction in the country in which they have qualified, to complete their induction in Ireland. This measure is particularly relevant to Irish citizens who have studied and qualified abroad and who may wish to return to the Irish education sector.
