“Minimalist cosmetic interventions,” by the Government have failed to “make a dent” in the problem of teacher shortages, the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) has said.
The union has warned schools are still struggling to fill hundreds of vacancies before the new academic year.
Two thirds of secondary schools had vacant teacher positions last year, according to a survey of the union’s members published on Wednesday. The survey revealed four in five of the schools that advertised jobs received no applications.
Schools routinely had to rely on deputy principals or student teachers to fill in where gaps occurred, the survey found. Special education needs teachers often had to be redeployed or higher and ordinary level classes merged.
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Asked what they thought the reasons for the shortages were, 82 per cent of respondents in the poll, which was conducted by Red C, cited young teachers emigrating to work overseas. A further 74 per cent felt the cost of obtaining postgraduate teaching qualifications acted as a barrier to entering the classroom and 68 per cent felt a career in teaching was simply not regarded as attractive enough.
Specific gaps in subject areas and the workload involved in the job were also cited by many and this later factor, the research suggests, is made worse by the ongoing shortages.
According to the recruitment website Educationposts.ie on Wednesday morning, there are 387 vacancies for post-primary schoolteachers across the State, almost unchanged from this time last year. The site also lists hundreds of advertised posts in primary schools.
“The Minister for Education is at sixes and sevens as the recruitment and retention crisis deepens,” said ASTI general secretary, Kieran Chirstie.
“In recent years several minimalist cosmetic interventions have been announced and repackaged that have failed to make a dent in the problem. These include upskilling of existing teachers, extra training places for teachers in our colleges of education, changes to student teacher placement arrangements, and changes to the substitution arrangements applicable for teachers on leave schemes and retired teachers.
“The Minister needs to belatedly realise that it is impossible to entice teachers to return from other countries on the promise of part-time or fixed term positions only. Subject to satisfactory probation, permanent appointments should be made available. Shortening of the extraordinarily long teachers’ pay scale and doubling the number of middle management posts in schools would also help enormously to properly address the teacher supply crisis,” he added.
“The children of our country are paying an enormous price in this crisis and it will leave a long and bitter legacy.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said that while it is acknowledged there are still challenges in relation to recruitment there are, at almost 75,000 full-time equivalents, more teachers in Irish schools than ever before and the department is “undertaking a comprehensive programme to support the supply of teachers”.
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