School staff issues come as no surprise
IT IS only a few years, well, 2011-2012, since retired teachers were told they were not welcome in classrooms because any substitute work that was available had to be given to unemployed graduates. The country was on its knees and opportunities for newly qualified teachers were limited.
Now, post-austerity, we are back to better employment days for teachers, and that includes the thousands of extra positions created to cope with the growth in pupil numbers and also others, restored or created. It should be a good time for the education system but it has thrown up new difficulties.
The flow of graduates from teacher education programmes has remained steady, and, at primary level, at least, they can pretty much expect to walk into a full-time job. But, an unintended consequence is that there are fewer without a job and, therefore, fewer available for substitute work. This issue has dogged primary schools this year.
In a sign of the improved employment prospects in the sector, Dublin City University, which incorporates a number of primary teacher training colleges, as well as offering second-level teacher education programmes, is not running its annual recruitment fair. Instead, it is organising more bespoke presentations for principals.
That fair increasingly became a magnet for international recruiters, and while it is not there to facilitate them this year, Irish teachers continue to be actively sought for the jobs abroad.
It was during the recession era that the flight of teachers to jobs and tax-free salaries in the Middle East really took off. It is a legacy that is not only continuing, but, anecdotal evidence would suggest, is growing.
A factor that may contribute to newly qualified second-level teachers heading abroad is the years it can take a graduate to build up to a full-time job, often surviving for years on low hours. A recent Higher Education Authority report on the first destination of graduates in 2017, showed
that only 7pc of newly qualified working secondlevel teachers had a permanent job in Ireland, 35pc to 38pc were in temporary jobs, and 14pc to 17pc were working part time. About 10pc to 15pc were overseas. There should be no surprise about the shortage of teachers for certain subjects at second-level. It was well-flagged back in 2014, in an interim report from a Teaching Council working group on teacher supply. It confirmed the system is producing too many teachers in subjects such as English and History and not enough in others.
Among its terms of reference was to develop a model of teacher supply to ensure a sufficient supply to meet demand. It is a complex task, but the sooner action is taken, the sooner the problems can be alleviated.