In response to acute teacher shortages, primary school principals have set up a new website advertising vacancies in schools aimed at Irish and overseas teachers.
Www.educationposts.com has been set up by the Irish Primary Principals' Network (IPPN), the professional association for principals.
The director of IPPN, Mr Sean Cottrell, said the website would make a major attempt to reach overseas teachers interested in a career in the Republic.
"Schools are having to search desperately for teachers and if somebody from abroad wants to settle in Ireland and teach, this website could be their first point of contact."
The service is free and any school in the Republic will be allowed post an advertisement on it. "It will bring vacancies to the attention of undergraduates and teachers from Belmullet to Brisbane," Mr Cottrell said .
The website allows users to search by county and by teaching job. For example, apart from ordinary teaching posts, other vacancies included are: learning support teacher, home-school liasion teacher and Traveller teacher.
The IPPN's is the latest initiative to try and match teachers with schools looking to recruit. The decision not to charge for the service is likely to make it popular with schools.
At present many primary schools depend on unqualified teachers to fill staffing gaps. The Minister for Education, Dr Woods, last year said there were about 1,500 unqualified teachers in the system.
The Department of Education is under pressure to deal with the dependence of schools on unqualified teachers. The Irish National Teachers' Organisation has said its members will not teach in schools which use these personnel within the next few years.
Almost 70 per cent of second-level schools have also found difficulty getting qualified teachers and many have dropped subjects and reduced teaching hours as a result, according to an ASTI survey from last year.
More than half said they needed an Irish teacher, with almost one-third looking for a French teacher.