The need for fluent Irish is a significant impediment to more working-class young people becoming teachers, according to a report published on Wednesday.
Drawing on interviews with 17 students from poorer areas studying teaching at Dublin City University, the report finds high points requirements for teaching (480), costs of getting to and staying at college, self-doubt and insufficient career counselling were barriers to working-class young people studying primary-school teaching.
The report, by the DCU Educational Disadvantage Centre, examines the impact of three “outreach learning hubs”, established in 2017 by the university in conjunction with the Northside Area Partnership in Darndale/Coolock, Kilbarrack and Finglas.
The hubs, which support young people considering teaching, provide grinds, exam preparation, Irish language support, mentoring and financial advice.
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Since opening, 47 hub students got places studying education in DCU, compared with “close to zero” from those areas in the previous decade. The 17 people interviewed for the report had been through the hubs.
“Ten out of 17 mentioned the barriers faced by their friends were proficiency in the Irish language,” it notes.
“The importance of role models for children and young people from within their own communities in supporting engagement and achievement has been well documented.”
Given that 16 of the 17 students wanted to teach in Deis (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in School) schools, it says there was “a clear need for continued support and potential expansion of the hubs” to other working-class communities.
Among those who have benefited from the Finglas hub is second-year Bachelor of Education student Alex Grogan (19). She attended Gaelscoil Bhaile Munna in Ballymun and Scoil Chaitríona in Glasnevin, and Deis schools.
“I realised very early I wanted to be a teacher. In both schools there was always a sense of community,” says Grogan. “For some kids, the teachers might be the only responsible adult in their life, the only adult who‘d make them smile in a day or who made them feel safe. The atmosphere they created was always positive.”
Asked if there was one teacher she particularly recalls, she replies: “Muinteoir Catríona in junior infants. Even though I was only a baby, teachers like her really inspired me.”
She recalls “working really hard” but being daunted by the points she needed to achieve to go on to third level. When Covid-19 closed schools, Grogan feared she was “never going to be able to do this”. But a friend told her about the DCU learning hub where teachers provided classes and grinds “that suited us”.
“It was what we wanted support with; everything was up to such a high standard. The teachers were so about us ... there with constant support, always checking in on us,” she says.
“No one in my house had been to college. When I first went into a lecture hall, there was over 400 people there. I thought I would be sick, but with Eve [who also attended the hub] we had each other to support each other. Without the hub we wouldn’t have had that. We knew the two of us worked hard to be here.”
The majority in Grogan’s year are women from outside the capital.
“The Dubliners are definitely in a minority,” she says. “I would love to teach in a Deis school, give back to my community.”
Asked what a teacher from a working-class background can bring to a group of working-class children, she replies: “We have the experience. We knew what it’s like to be in those kids’ shoes. You know there are kids that are going to have problems at home [and] not to give out to them if they are tired. We don’t know what might have been going on in their house the night before.
“At the back of your mind, you’ll know there are many challenges these kids have but we can show them they can strive and we can support them.”
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