Teachers struggling to find work in Ireland are being lured by jobs in UK, writes Gabrielle Monaghan

After studying art at the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork and training to be a teacher in Birmingham, Claire Stafford was disappointed she couldn't find a job as an art teacher in Ireland. So she stayed in Britain, eventually moving up the career ladder to become head of department at an east London school.

Now Stafford is luring other secondary school teachers facing the same predicament to England and Scotland, where schools rely heavily on foreign talent amid a shortage of native teachers. In July, Stafford became the Irish manager for Uteach Recruitment, a British company that specialises in finding teachers abroad and placing them with British schools.

"Irish teachers would like to stay in Ireland but the Department of Education recently stipulated that graduates must have one full year of employment to get their qualification recognised here," Stafford says from her office near Buttevant, Co Cork.

"Uteach offers them a relocation package for placements in the UK so they can get their qualification recognised."

Uteach Recruitment, based in the Scottish town of Coatbridge, has placed more than 200 Irish teachers in British schools and currently has 100 more vacancies for teachers willing to start as soon as this month. According to the National Recruitment Federation, the agency is the only one of its kind in Ireland.

The five-year-old company, formerly known as Retronix Education Services, pays expenses, including air fares to Britain and overnight accommodation, for teachers to travel to interviews in Britain. If teachers are unable to attend interviews, the recruitment agency can arrange a live video conference.

Uteach Recruitment will also help successful candidates organise a British bank account and a national insurance number.

"We help them find accommodation in the UK close to the school, help them relocate to another post if necessary, offer a 24-hour helpline, and we manage their contracts so they can focus on teaching," says Kathleen Brennan, education director at Uteach Recruitment.

Part of Stafford's role at Uteach is to run pre-employment training days in Ireland, which are aimed at preparing teachers for work in British schools. This entails explaining how the British curriculum works, what to expect from British pupils and how Irish teachers can adapt their skills and teaching style to British classrooms. She is currently visiting teacher-training colleges across the country and meeting teachers who are considering relocating.

"I'm getting a lot of CVs, not just from newly qualified teachers but from those who have been subbing for a few years," Stafford says. "Also, a lot of teachers are having to do temporary work and just want something full time."

Demand for Uteach's services is rising due to a shortage of full-time employment opportunities in Irish schools, according to Stafford, who describes the domestic teaching market as "catastrophic" for job applicants.

"I'm taking CVs from young teachers who say they are sending out hundreds of CVs to schools here," she says. "For one job, there might be up to 200 applicants. . .

"Newly qualified teachers going for jobs this year are finding they are surrounded at an interview by people with six or seven years' experience.

"Some just give up and go and work in a bank, shop or office. We are offering them a chance to do what they are trained to do."

Teachers are more likely to be successful in an interview in England and may also work fewer hours in a full-time job there, though the disciplinary challenges they may face in British classrooms are just as daunting as they are at home, says Stafford.

"If a teacher goes for a job in England, there's a good chance they'll get that job," she says. "Depending on where you go in England, it can be demanding. Around London, the levels of discipline are similar to schools in inner-city Dublin."

A report commissioned earlier this year by the British Department for Education showed the extent of teacher shortages in maths and science. One in four secondary maths lessons is being taken by teachers of other subjects, such as French and geography, and more than a quarter of schools for 11 to 16-year-olds have no physics specialists, according to the National Foundation for Educational Research.

An eighth of A-level teaching in physics is being done by people with only a GCSE or A-level in the subject, the report found. Pupils in disadvantaged areas are the most likely to be without specialist teachers. But even in affluent areas, schools are struggling to recruit.

As a result, recruitment agencies and schools in Britain are advertising not only in Ireland, but as far afield as New Zealand. While Uteach describes Ireland as a "big market" for the agency, it intends to expand to Canada and Australia to fill an increasing number of vacancies.

Irish teachers spend an average of three to five years in Britain, though, for many of them, their main goal is to get their qualification recognised.

"There are teachers I come across who are reluctant to leave Ireland, but England is not a million miles away," says Stafford.