Sir, – The crisis in teacher recruitment and retention is even more stark than Breda O’Brien describes (Opinion & Analysis, August 27th). There are a number of schools in Dublin where subjects are currently being eliminated from the curriculum because of the absence of teachers to teach those subjects.
Equality of access to education is dealt yet another blow, this time with a curtailed subject choice being offered to Dublin students because of the inability to find teachers of woodwork, metalwork, home economics, etc, in the city.
Securing a full complement of qualified teachers is one of the most critical challenges facing school principals across the country presently, but particularly in Dublin where teachers are giving up full-time positions and taking lesser contracts down the country because of the socially impaired housing market and the excessive cost of living in the city.
In these opening days of the school year, principals are left rejigging timetables in desperate attempts to plug gaps and find “creative solutions” operating from what has sadly become the default position of choosing the least-worst option.
The roots of this crisis lie in the failure to plan. A decade ago we knew this crisis was coming down the tracks.
Over the years, eminent educationalists and others a lot more clever than me have pointed out in these columns and elsewhere that a teacher supply problem was steadily growing to a crisis stage which was then exacerbated even more acutely by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Department of Education response to the warnings was to establish the Teacher Supply Steering Group in March 2018.
Over four years later, their focus, bizarrely, still seems to be on gathering data, rather than finding solutions.
In relation to the Teaching Council, the most measured assessment that might be given is that aside from their abject failure in their statutory function in terms of teacher supply, it has done little or nothing to successfully promote the teaching profession in recent years.
To truly address the crisis in teacher supply, bold action needs to be taken. First, we need to alleviate the extortionate cost of teacher training for student teachers. Second, we need to pay our trainee teachers. Third, a Dublin weighting allowance should be urgently considered for teachers and other key workers to help pay for high costs in accommodation, transport and childcare in the city and to help retain these qualified professionals.
It is time for policymakers to stop tinkering around the edges with the issue of teacher supply.
These are serious times and we need serious action. We need qualified teachers in our classrooms. – Yours, etc,
JOHN McHUGH,
Principal,
Ardscoil Rís,
Dublin 9.