Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 9 May 2017
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
Banded Hours Contract Bill 2016: Discussion (Resumed)
4:00 pm
Mr. Colm Kelly:
On that issue, one of the things we are cognisant of and many of us are trained as teachers, it did not take us half the length of time to train as teachers as it currently does. One now has a situation where a science graduate is spending four years doing an undergraduate degree and other two years completing their postgraduate master's in education.
It could be another two to three years before they complete their Teaching Council registration hours. The length of time and number of hoops that our members have to jump through to become recognised teachers are becoming ridiculous. As I stated, many of us are trained teachers and we did not have to jump through half of those hoops.