Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have nothing specific. This was raised at a number of the teachers' conferences last spring and some of the Deputies here will be aware of that. Not everybody who applies to do a conversion course to become a teacher on top of his or her original primary degree is necessarily looking for employment in Ireland. Some of the teacher unions have looked at the demand for teachers within this country, the places that are available and the number of people qualifying and have said that we are producing too many teachers. A number of people who, sadly, have decided to emigrate for whatever reason realise that there is a worldwide shortage of highly qualified English-speaking teachers.

The colleges of education, or teacher training colleges as they were known, accept people from the top 15% of leaving certificate results, which is totally at variance with the average across Europe. The quality of an Irish primary school teacher, and to a lesser extent a secondary school teacher, is very high. For example, there are premiums in pay for Irish qualified teachers who commit to working in an inner city school in London for a fixed number of years, such is the increasing demand in London and the quality of teacher education. There are also teaching opportunities in the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East. People who opt to do the conversion course with Hibernia College, which costs approximately €10,000, do it on the basis that they can get that conversion to primary school teacher accredited and recognised in the space of 20 months, after which they have the earning capacity abroad. They are being recruited in that way in many cases.

The Deputy is probably aware of what we have done in structural reform of the initial teacher education area. The 19 providers are being reconfigured into six different clusters. That is proceeding very satisfactorily and I hope to be able to make a comprehensive report on the position in the autumn.