Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is true.

I welcome the developments that are taking place. As the Minister mentioned, the council also has an important function in teacher education.

The Minister adverted to several reforms that are under way. I urge the Minister to ensure sufficient resources are put in place to deliver on these reforms effectively because that aspect is crucial. We must ensure that teachers are given proper support at the initial teacher education stage but also in terms of continuous professional development throughout their careers. This should apply not only in their subjects, but also for all the challenges they face in the modern-day classroom. I appreciate that resources are tight but this is a critical area and I urge the Minister to ensure it is a priority. If we are to get out of the difficulties that we have as a country, then we must focus on education, and the quality of our teachers is important in this regard. However, they can only do as good a job as they are equipped to do. I urge the Minister to prioritise this area.

The Minister referred to teacher supply. Concerns have been raised by the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals in the past week about the serious shortage of teachers qualified to cope with increasing student levels at second level. The NAPD director, Clive Byrne, has predicted an increase of 15%. I realise the Department has been monitoring demographic data in recent years and has been tracking the increases coming through and planning for them. Mr. Byrne has highlighted the fact that currently there is no relevant data on the types of teachers who will be retiring in the coming years and the subjects they teach. The Minister has remarked on this absence as well. I appreciate that the Teaching Council is working on this at the moment and preparing advice for him and I urge the Minister to give this priority. I realise things have become a good deal better and that much work was done under the last Government and this Government on improving data. We cannot run any system, whether in education or anywhere else, without proper data and planning. I realise much work has been done but we must ensure we fix this part of the problem as well. If changes have to be made to teacher education and if we have to consider introducing reserve places for teachers in certain subjects, then that is what we need to do. We cannot simply assume that it will work out fine and that we will get enough. We cannot assume that without putting quotas in place for subjects in higher diploma in education training that we will get enough people coming out who are capable of teaching mathematics, science or other key subjects. It might not make everyone happy to have to examine this aspect of planning but we must get serious about finding the most effective system to ensure that we have properly qualified teachers across all subjects. We must plan not only for next year or five years time, but for ten and 20 years time in terms of where are the subject demands and priorities.