Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There was a time in Ireland when the teacher, and especially the primary school principal, held a celebrated status in the village or the community. The literary achievements of our people, the economic expansion from the 1960s onwards and the overall development of our society was built on a foundation of good quality teaching at primary and second level schools. It is key to continued societal development and health.

The key dynamic in the learning experience remains the relationship between teacher and child and the teacher and the student in the classroom. To nurture that relationship we need to invest in our teachers, in their training, in their pay and conditions and in the quality of their teaching experience. In short we must always seek to attract our brightest and best to the teaching profession. We are not doing that at the moment in this country. Second level schools in particular are finding it extremely difficult to recruit teachers in the subjects of science, technology, engineering, maths, Irish, German, French and much more. Overall, the applications to become second level teachers have dropped precipitously from some 3,000 in 2011 to just over 1,000 in 2017. There have been only 600 applications as of 9 January 2018.

The costs of becoming a secondary school teacher are too expensive. It costs more than €10,000 to complete a postgraduate Master's in Education over a two year period. Unfortunately, postgraduate programmes have now become the new cash cow for universities to help them deal with the neglect by the Government and the starvation of Government funding towards universities. Our capacity to attract young people into teaching is damaged as a result of this reality. Six years to become a second level teacher is, in my view, excessive. This needs urgent review.

There is a substitute teacher supply crisis at primary school level. The Catholic Primary Schools Management Association estimates that 90% of schools experience difficulties in sourcing substitute teachers, which is especially acute in special education where there are huge difficulties in this context. More than 3,600 unqualified people were employed as teachers in the past year. The State Examinations Commission reported a crisis in attracting suitably qualified teachers to conduct examinations.

We need an urgent intervention. We also need a roadmap for achieving full pay equality for teachers. Why has the Minister been so lethargic and inept in dealing with this issue? The Teaching Council completed a report in 2015 around teacher supply in Ireland and it was suppressed until May 2017. Why is there a lack of a comprehensive approach and intervention to resolve this crisis in teacher recruitment?

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