Ms Deirdre McDonnell:

The Teaching Council did some work in its Striking the Balance report. I am not sure whether members have seen that. It was advice the Department and the Minister sought on teacher supply a number of years ago. It sets out a fairly detailed forecast regarding primary level but it is less detailed about post-primary level. One of the priorities we are setting now is to look at those supply issues at post-primary level. The need to do that on a subject level makes it more complicated because there are different data sources. One of the jobs I have in the working group I am leading is to look at the different data sources we have and how we can use them to work out what we have in the system in terms of subject teachers and then look at policy issues and demographics and how that will impact in the coming years.

The Senator referred to the bottleneck. Demographics mean the population at second level will continue to rise until 2024 and 2025 and we need to manage it over that period. There are pinch points in particular subjects. As a result, we will be prioritising some, for example, STEM subjects and languages. However, we will have to take a broader look at supply issues over that period to meet the demographic demand.