Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 15 February 2023
114. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Minister for Education given the issues faced by many second level schools in filling reaching posts if she will consider collating information on the number of unfilled posts in second level schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7597/23]
View answerThe recruitment and appointment of teachers to fill teaching posts is a matter for the individual school authorities, subject to procedures agreed under Section 24 of the Education Act 1998 (as amended by the Education (Amendment) Act 2012). My Department does not currently collate data on the number of vacant posts in post-primary schools.
Work is ongoing in my Department to produce projections of post-primary teacher demand and supply on a subject-level basis to inform teacher supply planning. Ultimately, the intention is to establish a robust data-based model for the effective projection of future teacher demand and supply across the school system at both primary and post-primary levels.
The recruitment of teachers is a priority area of action for the Department, given the importance of ensuring that every child's experience in school is positive and that they have available to them qualified, engaged, and supportive teachers to support them in their learning.
My Department is undertaking a comprehensive programme to support the supply of teachers. A number of measures are being implemented, including:
- a range of special, temporary arrangements introduced by HEIs to create greater capacity for student teachers to provide substitute cover,
- adjustment of the provision of continuing professional development (CPD) to teachers to reduce the need for substitution and to provide additional personnel to support schools,
- increasing the additional hours that post-primary teachers can teach each term from 20 to 35 for the remainder of the 2022/23 school year,
- launching a communications campaign to encourage retired teachers to take up short-term substitute positions and to enable them to teach for up to 50 days in each of the calendar years 2021 to 2023 without, in most cases, a reduction in their pension,
- providing the allocated staffing resources for the 2023/34 school year to post-primary schools on 26 January,
- introduction, by the Teaching Council, of regulations to allow the registration of 3rd and 4th-year undergraduate student teachers, with more than 2,600 student teachers now registered,
- providing for fully funded upskilling programmes in mathematics, physics and Spanish. Beginning with 170 places in January 2021, I have agreed to increase places to more than 300 in 2023, and a new Irish upskilling programme is planned for 2023/24
- allowing job-sharing teachers to be employed to work in a substitute capacity, during the period they are rostered off duty, in their own or in other schools on a temporary basis for the 2022/23 school year, and
- suspending, on a temporary basis, the limits on substitute work that apply to teachers on a career break for the 2022/23 school year.
These measures are underpinned by the Teaching Transforms campaign which promotes the teaching profession and encourages students to follow a career in teaching.
Despite the positive impact of these important actions, work remains to be done to address teacher supply challenges, particularly to ensure the availability of sufficient numbers of substitute teachers. My Department continues to work intensively with all stakeholders to develop and implement creative solutions to address the teacher supply challenges for schools.
