Teacher supply crisis – underlying problems remain unaddressed

Sir, – The teacher supply crisis has been ongoing for well over a decade (“The Irish Times view on the new incentive payment for young teachers: a sign of a wider problem”, News, June 27th). The move to reward newly qualified teachers with a €2,000 incentive payment, if they sign on to join the staff of a school in the next academic year, is just the latest in a sequence of “sticking plaster solutions” which have been introduced by the Department of Education. Yes, it is likely to have some impact but will not alter the situation in any fundamental way.

Meanwhile, the underlying problems including a failure to completely restore the common basic salary scale, an inadequate promotional structure, a lack of full-time permanent positions and the cost of postgraduate teacher education programmes remain unaddressed.

Rather than tackle these issues in a comprehensive manner, it seems the authorities are waiting for the peak in student numbers to work its way through the system. The inevitable consequence is that our schools will have to continue to rely on unqualified personnel to teach some of our younger citizens well into the next decade. – Yours, etc,

Prof JUDITH HARFORD,