Jim McDaid (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator Fergal Browne for raising this issue and I agree with certain parts of his contribution. I apologise for the absence of the Minister for Education and Science, who asked that I relay his response to the Senator.

The primary sector has experienced a shortage of trained teachers in recent years mainly as a result of the substantial number of teaching posts which this and the previous Government have created to improve the pupil-teacher ratio, cater for pupils in disadvantaged areas and provide resources for children with special needs. The difficulties being experienced are aggravated by the number of teachers availing of career breaks and job-sharing schemes. It is accepted that there are difficulties.

The Department of Education and Science has introduced a range of measures to address the current shortage of qualified teachers and is also examining further options for addressing the teacher supply issue in connection with relevant interests. The additional measures introduced to address the teacher shortage include doublingthe number of students admitted annually to the B.Ed. programme in the colleges of education; providing postgraduate courses each year; recognising B.Ed. graduates of St. Mary's College, Belfast, who have studied Irish to honours level as an academic subject as part of their teaching qualifications, as fully qualified; recognising Montessori trained teachers, who have successfully completed the full-time course of three years duration at St. Nicholas, Dún Laoghaire, which is recognised by HETAC, or the Montessori qualification which is awarded on completion of the three year course in the AMI college, as being fully qualified substitute teachers to teach in certain categories of special schools, special classes and as resource teachers in primary schools; recognising fully qualified teachers who trained outside the State to teach in certain categories of school and classes without the necessity to hold the Irish language qualification; and the Minister's recent decision to recognise graduates of a new primary teacher training course, accredited by HETAC and being delivered by Hibernia College — to which the Senator referred — for the purposes of primary teaching.

The graduate diploma course is a full-time course run to enable third level graduates to train as primary school teachers. The course was introduced as a response to a shortage in the supply of primary school teachers. It was first provided in the 1995-6 academic year in four of the colleges of education and has been repeated on a number of occasions since then. The initial intake for the course was 180 students and the number of graduates of the course has varied according to demand from 180 in 1995-96, 280 in 1998-9 and 460 in the 2001-02 and 2002-03 school years.

There are currently some 3,500 students enrolled and pursuing various stages of primary teacher training programmes in the colleges of education. Based on the significant increase in the output of qualified teachers coming from the colleges of education and having considered the range of additional measures in place to address the supply of qualified teachers, the Department has requested the colleges of education to provide another postgraduate course to commence early in 2004 and to revert to 280 places as had previously been the case. The position with regard to future years will be considered in the context of teacher supply and available resources.

The Department is committed to ensuring that the existing shortage of qualified teachers will be eliminated within the next two to three years and in this context the Department will continue to consider new initiatives and keep existing initiatives under review.