Mr. Páiric Clerkin:

I thank the joint committee for the invitation and opportunity to speak on the shortage of substitute teachers in primary schools. I confirm that this shortage is among the most pressing issues affect primary schools and school leaders. While many schools have had significant difficulty finding available and suitably qualified substitute teachers, certain school types have severe difficulty in doing so. They include Gaelscoileanna, special schools, island schools, those located in remote areas and one-teacher schools.

There is direct evidence that the position has become increasingly challenging and is getting worse over time. This is confirmed by the IPPN's consultation with school leaders, both directly at our conferences and in surveys we undertook on substitute teacher availability in 2015, 2016 and 2018. Our most recent survey in January confirmed that 42% of schools had failed on ten or more occasions to find a substitute teacher since September. The Catholic Primary School Management Association, CPSMA, also reports that 90% of its schools have experienced difficulty finding substitutes since September 2017. The Teaching Council report, Striking the Balance, also noted significant issues with regard to primary education, including that only 64% of absences were claimed for by schools. A key conclusion in the report noted "significant concerns regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of the current substitute teacher system" and stated "there is a risk that this dysfunction can have a negative impact on the quality of pupil learning." The IPPN shares these concerns. Schools, particularly principals, are dealing with the shortfall and its consequences.

The biggest impact of the shortage of substitute teachers is on children whose learning suffers, particularly in the case of longer-term absences. There is a workload impact on the principal, which means his or her attention is drawn away from leading teaching and learning. In the case of the 59% of teaching principals, the position is much worse as their teaching also suffers.

Schools are considering revising policies affecting teachers' professional learning opportunities such as career breaks, extra personal vacation days, secondments and job-sharing.

Principals are making decisions that are frankly distasteful such as asking resource teachers to cover for absences, teaching classes themselves, splitting classes and, in extreme cases, hiring unqualified or partially qualified people to teach pupils. This is far from ideal. Understandably, parents ask challenging questions and there are no easy answers.

There are a number of potential solutions that would at least alleviate the shortage of substitute teachers over the next few years while the crisis is at its worst. The first is supply teacher panels to ensure trained subs are available regionally. This would offer security to new graduates and provide cover for the leadership days of teaching principals. Restoring pay equality for new entrants to the profession would also help retain newly qualified teachers in Ireland. The IPPN strongly believes that the teaching practice element of the fourth year should be considered as an internship. This would allow for greater flexibility in the redeployment of host teachers, including to cover for their colleagues' absences. Teachers who are job sharing should be allowed to provide substitute cover outside of their existing contracted hours should they so wish. They are currently prohibited from doing so if their contract is in their school. Clearing redeployment panels earlier and ensuring all teachers seeking work register with educationposts.ieand TextaSub would also help. The Department has taken a number of measures to address the issues relating to the shortage of substitute teachers in the short term. However, more needs to be done if schools are to see an improvement in the challenges they face in this regard, especially in the longer term.