Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to respond on behalf of the Government and to speak about our work in the area of teacher supply. The Minister, Deputy Foley, wanted to be here this morning to respond in person to the motion and listen to all the voices that will contribute to this important debate. Regrettably, she is present in her capacity as Minister for Education at the OECD ministerial conference taking place in Paris involving 38 members of the OECD and is thus unable to attend. She continues to work intensively with officials and stakeholders on this issue, however.

This is, of course, a priority area of action for the Department given the importance of ensuring that every child's experience in school is positive and that they have available to them qualified, engaged and supportive teachers to support them in their learning. We look forward to continuing work with key stakeholders in this regard.

The Department of Education runs a comprehensive programme of work to support the supply of teachers. Despite this work, it is acknowledged that problems persist when it comes to sourcing teachers. The nature of the challenges is different but also shared to some extent across the two sectors. At primary level, the vast majority of teaching posts are filled and challenges are more likely to arise in respect of securing substitute cover. Where challenges arise at post-primary level, it is more likely in respect of specific subject areas.

A challenge shared across primary and post-primary when it comes to vacancies are the wider societal challenges associated with the cost of living and availability of housing that every sector is facing, which has been mentioned. As Deputies know, the Government is investing hugely in this area through its Housing for All plan. In budget 2023, a package of €6.3 billion was announced, which included a commitment of €1.3 billion towards more affordable housing. A vacant homes tax is also committed to and legislation providing for its introduction is due to be enacted before the end of the year.

The Government also introduced the first ever stand-alone legislation to support the provision of more affordable housing via the Affordable Housing Act 2021, which provides for the now-established first home scheme, the local authority-led affordable purchase scheme and which introduced a new form of tenure in cost rental. Both affordable purchase and cost-rental schemes are now delivering new homes and funding is in place to deliver 28,000 homes under these schemes in the period to 2026.

While some have spoken of the current challenge as a recruitment and retention problem, the evidence does not support this. The number of teachers registered with the Teaching Council has more than doubled to more than 116,000 teachers since its establishment in 2006.

Demand at undergraduate level remains high and there was increased interest among CAO applicants for post-primary teaching programmes in 2022. Interest in the Professional Master of Education programmes also remains high. The changes made to the programmes have focused on improving the quality of teaching in our schools, which is central to the educational outcomes of our children. The professional master of education is also to be included in a longitudinal review of teacher education, which is a joint initiative of the Department and the Teaching Council.

In terms of employment arrangements, it should also be remembered that teachers can be recruited on a permanent basis once the school or education and training board, ETB, is within its authorised allocation of teaching posts and the criteria set by the Department for filling of teaching posts are complied with.

A number of measures and actions have been taken to assist in meeting the teacher supply challenges. First, approximately 3,500 newly-qualified teachers have had their registrations finalised by the Teaching Council to date in 2022. The number of newly-qualified primary school teachers qualifying in recent years has remained steady despite the reduction in demographics in the sector now taking place. The Teaching Council made regulations allowing for the registration of third and fourth year undergraduate initial teacher education students under a new registration route. This school year sees the full impact of this measure. So far, more than 2,100 student teachers have applied for registration to date with approximately 1,250 registered at this time.

Significant additional posts have also been allocated to the primary substitute teacher supply panels in areas where significant challenges in sourcing substitution continue. For 2022-23, there are 151 supply panels nationally, with an allocation of 610 posts covering 2,842 schools. Some 450 teachers have been appointed to these posts.

Launched in 2019, Sub Seeker is a central portal for short-term substitute vacancies, which was jointly developed by the Irish Primary Principals' Network and the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, in accordance with the Department of Education's teacher supply action plan. The portal matches available primary and post-primary teachers with short-term substitute vacancies. More than 11,800 teachers have registered with Sub Seeker to date.

On a temporary basis for the 2022-23 school year, job-sharing teachers may be employed to work as substitutes during the period they are rostered off-duty. The limit on substitute work applying to teachers on career break has also been temporarily suspended for the 2022-23 school year. A pension abatement waiver for retired teachers returning to teach for up to 50 days is available in each of the three calendar years 2021, 2022 and 2023.

The Department has put in place a scheme for the 2022-23 school year to allow post-primary teachers to teach in their subject area over the usual limit of 22 hours per week, up to a maximum of 20 additional hours per term.

Turasabhaile is a service developed by the post-primary school management bodies and National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals that matches registered teachers resident abroad with post-primary vacancies in schools in Ireland.

Free upskilling programmes are now available for post-primary registered teachers to upskill in subjects where teacher supply is tight such as in mathematics, Spanish and physics. These commenced in January 2021. Approximately 170 places were provided in the first intake across the three programmes with an increase in places to 310 for the class graduating in 2023. A new course for teachers to upskill in Irish will commence in 2023.

Higher education institutions have developed new four-year initial teacher education undergraduate programmes in a number of post-primary priority subject areas including Irish, mathematics, computer science and modern foreign languages. These new programmes mean that more student teachers can qualify to be post-primary teachers in four years instead of six and at much lower cost than the Professional Master of Education route. Following on from the Ward report, the qualification period for contracts of indefinite duration was reduced from three years to two years. The various measures to support teacher supply are underpinned by the Teaching Transforms campaign, which promotes the teaching profession and encourages students to follow a career in teaching.

In spite of the actions taken, the Government accepts that challenges remain and that further action is needed. The Minister, Deputy Foley, has updated the Government in respect of a range of actions that are being progressed, which I will set out.

The Department is in contact with some initial teacher education providers, including Hibernia College, with a view to maximising the availability of their Professional Master of Education students to undertake substitution work for the remainder of the school year.

The teacher supply panels at primary level are now being reviewed to evaluate their usage and effectiveness for the next school year. This may lead to some modification from the current approach in terms of how panels are used and how recruitment for the panels operates.

It is intended to consider, on a temporary basis and following engagement with the education partners, arrangements for co-operating teachers to allow them to substitute in other classes while a student teacher is on placement in their class.

The potential to suspend or amend on a temporary basis non-statutory leave arrangements, which have the effect of creating demand on substitution in schools, is also under consideration by the Department. A mechanism is being advanced to incentivise and support schools employing a teacher on less than full hours to use the teacher sharing scheme that has been developed.

Shortly, the Irish Primary Principals' Network is expected to launch its new central portal for the recruitment of teachers to long-term positions.

The portal is designed to match available teachers with vacancies in a user-friendly manner and provide an efficient application and recruitment process for both teachers and schools. The Department's recent report on developing a post-primary subject teacher demand and supply model for Ireland will provide a basis for further consultation with education stakeholders. It is planned to hold a workshop on this in the near future. Plans to attract students from more diverse backgrounds into teaching as a profession are also being developed.

There have been calls for union representation on the existing teacher supply structures and the establishment of an emergency task force. The current set of structures supporting the teacher supply work will be reviewed so their effectiveness can be maintained and enhanced, having regard to the current phase of the work. The Department of Education will augment the existing upskilling programmes in priority subject areas, both in terms of increasing participating numbers where needed and broadening them to include other subject areas with an identified supply shortfall. The Teaching Council is being asked to examine its current registration process for those qualified outside the State and to consider the temporary reintroduction of facilitating UK-trained teachers undertaking their induction in Ireland.

As Minister of State with responsibility for special education and inclusion, I want to say something specifically on the use of special education resources by schools, which has been raised by some Deputies this morning. The use of banked SET hours was an exceptional measure during the Covid-19 impact on schools. It was an urgent measure of last resort, following public health advice, and was not intended to be available on an ongoing basis due to the potential to impact negatively on students with special educational needs. Classes could not be split then but they can now.

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