Extra teacher-training places announced

AN estimated 280 extra places are set to be made available on secondary school teaching courses.

Education Minister Richard Bruton made this announcement last night as his latest initiative to tackle reports of teacher shortages at post-primary level in subjects such as Irish, physics and home economics.

The Minister also said that, following consultation with the Irish Universities Association, there will be ‘an expansion of the number of places on post-primary teacher education courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level’.

Mr Bruton added: ‘The measures include ‘an increase in the priority areas of STEM [science, technology, engineering and maths], Irish and foreign languages of more than 100 places, an increase of over 40% on 2017 in these areas.’

Mr Bruton said that while the number of people graduating from both undergraduate and postgraduate post-primary education courses remained ‘broadly constant over the past number of years’, the number of students entering ‘post-primary is increasing and will increase until 2025’.

Mr Bruton said: ‘Teaching is a fantastic profession for any young person considering their options, with a starting salary straight out of college of nearly €36,000’.

Recent figures from the CAO show there has been an increase of 8% in those applying to study on primary education courses along with a 4% increase in secondary education.