Teachers in Ireland have warned that hundreds of teaching positions remain unfilled ahead of the start of the new school year.
According to the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI), there are now 322 post-primary teaching openings published on the recruiting website educationposts.ie.
Liam Walsh, principal of Coláiste Pobail Setanta College in Clonee, Co. Dublin, told RTÉ that his school is among those struggling to recruit staff and has been for years.
According to the Department of Education, it has added nearly 17,000 teachers in the previous 10 years.
Kieran Christie, General Secretary of ASTI, believes that the current issue is the result of a decade of poor long-term planning and that the rise in the number of teachers is a result of demography.
While teachers are coming out of retirement to fill vacancies, he believes this is not a long-term solution but rather an evidence of a flawed system.
As per the Teaching Council website, there are 120,000 registered teachers, yet the public system only requires roughly 70,000 personnel.
“So there are 50,000 qualified individuals, and they are not all in Dubai or Canada.” “Many of them are still in this country, but they have chosen to pursue another career,” he stated.
“Teaching as a career must be reconsidered, rebuilt, and rebalanced.” And I’m talking about things like rebuilding the promotional potential inside teaching, and the length of the pay scale needs to be addressed.”
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