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

The Deputy has pointed to a deficiency in the system that has existed for a long time. When I came into office, we had 19 colleges of education, providing initial teacher education for primary school teachers and for secondary school teachers. In light of the literacy and numeracy and on foot of advice, I agreed that the initial teacher education for primary school teachers should go from three years to four years, and from one to two years for secondary school teachers, with a focus on pedagogic skills in six new clusters of educational provision.

The Deputy is right that the Department did not know how many skilled teachers we had at post-primary level, because post-primary level teachers tend to categorise themselves by how they teach subjects rather than teaching children, which is the definition of a primary school teacher. I have announced the decision in principle to begin to plan for the labour force of teachers. We will tell the colleges that educate post-primary teachers, for example, that we want a focus on STEM qualified teachers - science, technology, engineering and mathematics - and I will be bringing forward proposals on this. We will let the money follow our decision, so that schools of education will get money on the basis that they will give priority to graduate students who intend to follow certain kinds of teaching skills for which there is clearly a need.

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