Ms Deirdre McDonnell:

I thank the committee for the invitation to appear before it today to discuss the issue of teacher supply.

The committee will be aware that we are recruiting more teachers now than at any other period in the history of the State. Nearly 9,000 additional teaching posts have been created since the 2012-13 academic year. This increase is driven by demographics and various policy initiatives.

The Department is aware that some schools report difficulties in recruiting substitute teachers at primary school level and in certain subjects at post-primary level. A number of short-term measures have been put in place to increase the supply of teachers. These include suspending the restrictions on substitute work that a teacher on career break can undertake and reminding all retiring teachers that they must remain on the Teaching Council register to be employed in substitute positions.

Earlier this year, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, announced an expansion in the number of places on post-primary teacher education courses. Initial data indicate a rise in applications for these programmes in 2018 compared with 2017. It is the Department’s intention to build on this progress for 2019 and onwards.

The Minister has established structures to plan for the State's teacher needs for the coming years. These structures include expertise from the universities, from agencies of the Department with responsibilities in the area and from school management. There is also an external independent expert involved in the work. The views of other stakeholders will be sought as the work progresses. The Teaching Council’s report, Final Report on Teacher Supply in Ireland: Striking the Balance, informs this work.

A teacher supply steering group, chaired by the Secretary General of the Department, is overseeing the development and implementation of a programme of actions on teacher supply with clear timelines and outcomes and it is considering a several issues. A number of working groups are reporting and making recommendations to the steering group in specific areas and the groups have met on a number of occasions in recent months.

At its most recent meeting, the steering group approved a number of actions to be pursued over the coming months. These actions include developing and conducting a campaign to promote the teaching profession and recruitment, planning for the provision of additional places on teacher education programmes and a review of the implementation of the school placement guidelines by the Teaching Council. It is also intended to explore proposals for flexible options that will facilitate access to and participation in professional master's in education programmes and to explore the development of programmes to upskill existing teachers in targeted subject areas.

The starting salary for a newly qualified teacher, at €35,958 rising to €37,692 in October 2020, is not unattractive in the context of graduate salaries generally. It has been argued, however, that new entrant pay is a deterrent to recruitment. The matter of new entrant pay relates to pay policy across the entire public sector and is being considered in that context. Discussions between the trade unions, including the education trade unions and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on the matter of new entrant pay are ongoing currently.

Casualisation of employment has also been raised as an issue affecting retention in the profession. The Department has introduced measures to combat this, including accelerated access to permanency though contracts of indefinite duration and requiring schools to give preference to teachers on less than full hours as additional hours become available.

The steering group will be considering whether additional measures in this area might be taken.

At primary level, enrolments are projected to peak this year and decline steadily thereafter. In that context, the Department anticipates that the pressures on teacher supply in the primary sector will recede. At post-primary level, the student cohort continues to grow and is forecasted to increase until at least 2024.

The planning and governance structures now in place enable the Department to draw together relevant expertise and seek to address issues in a systemic way in order to meet the needs of our schools in the coming years. I thank committee members for their interest in this matter.