Schools to be allowed to share teachers to help alleviate shortages

Schools will be able to share teachers from the start of the next academic year to deliver key subjects.

From September, teachers will be given a contract to work in two schools in order to help alleviate shortages in second-level staff.

An Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) survey published last week shows unfilled teaching vacancies in almost half of second-level schools.

Almost a fifth of schools were forced to remove a subject or subjects from the curriculum as a result.

Waiting for Kay 2: Researchers bemoan demise of Ireland’s supercomputer

---

Children’s mental health under attack by the smartphone

---

‘Every child in the State should have the opportunity to be educated through Irish,’ committee told

---

Students to get digital media literacy lessons to help combat misinformation

---

The survey found three-quarters of school leaders reported that they received no applications for an advertised teaching post or posts in the current school year.

Recruitment problems were compounded by the non-availability of substitute teachers, the survey found.

Since September 2022, almost nine in 10 schools have had situations where no substitute teachers were available to fill teacher absences due to sick leave and other short-term absences.

[ Sex education overhaul: ‘It’s great that porn is going to be addressed on the curriculum’ ]

Contracts would be given to teachers in subjects such as Maths, English and Irish, which are all compulsory up to Leaving Certificate level.

A Department of Education spokesperson said there is already provision for the sharing of post-primary schools in a circular issued in September.

She added: “The Department of Education intends on introducing a pilot scheme with a number of schools to demonstrate the potential for the wider application of the 2019 circular.

“The department has been in close consultation with the management bodies in the development of this pilot.”

ASTI general secretary Kieran Christie told the Irish Examiner the scheme is “worth a try, but it won’t have beyond a minuscule impact on the problems that need to be addressed”.

The real issues, he said, are the recruitment and retention of teachers.

Minister for Education Norma Foley, who is due to address next week’s teachers’ conferences, will tell attendees her department has put in place measures to increase teacher recruitment.

These include allowing second-level teachers to provide additional hours of substitute cover in the subject they are qualified to teach; greater flexibility to allow student teachers to provide more substitute cover; lifting financial penalties for retired teachers providing cover, and allowing job-sharing teachers to work in a substitute capacity during the period they are rostered off.

[ Only quarter of computer science teachers at Leaving Cert level accredited ]

She said longer-term measures also in place include an increase in the number of places on teacher upskilling programmes in priority subjects such as maths, Spanish and physics, adding that CAO first-preference choices for post-primary teaching have increased this year by 11 per cent.