Seanad debates
Tuesday, 22 June 2021
Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters
Teaching Council of Ireland
9:00 am
Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail)
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The issue I bring to the attention of the Minister of State relates to the Teaching Council. A friend of mine contacted me about a month ago because of issues she was having registering with the Teaching Council. We had an interesting conversation. She then reached out to her peers and asked them to contact me about their experiences. To say that I was inundated with correspondence from teachers throughout the country is putting it mildly. They contacted me with problems, issues and challenges they have had with the Teaching Council in relation to their registration. It is clear to me, from the stories I have heard and the experiences of those I have listened to, that the Teaching Council needs to be reviewed and reformed. The stories and anecdotes about ongoing problems when trying to register include a general lack of support and shifting of the goalposts. One teacher said that is took her longer to register with the Teaching Council than it took her to become a teacher.
As we all know, it is vital to retain and attract high-quality teachers from home and abroad. I am concerned that many people’s experience with the Teaching Council is deterring them from choosing to come to or return to Ireland for teaching. One person who contacted my office spoke of his experience in trying to return to Ireland from the UK to take up a teaching post. The registration process took 270 days from start to finish. He was met with nothing but roadblocks, was not offered support or guidance, and spent many months chasing and following up with the Teaching Council, to no avail. He was out of pocket to the tune of €7,428.07. The problem was that because he was not registered as a teacher with the Teaching Council, he could not be paid as a teacher and was on a non-qualified substitute rate for that period. This gentleman had a postgraduate education from the University of Edinburgh, one of the top universities in the world. He is highly qualified and is a passionate advocate for education. He is exactly the type of person we should be supporting and welcoming with open arms into our education system. His experience is not an isolated occurrence. Many teachers, young and old, are being met with roadblock after roadblock. In situations where candidates do not get approved to teach a particular subject, there is no support and no guidance. Many teachers feel the Teaching Council is not fit for purpose.
We need to review the Teaching Council and its processes. Of course, while maintaining teaching standards is of vital importance, we need to ensure teacher who are qualified are not deterred from choosing to come back to Ireland to teach. Bureaucracy is a roadblock to people coming back to teach in Ireland. We cannot afford to sacrifice talent for bureaucracy and that is what is happening at the moment. There is a particular problem with overseas teachers relocating to Ireland, because of the registration issues. There is a requirement for vast amounts of documentation on every individual course taken. No flexibility is afforded. There is a lack of empathy and feedback, and a lack of timelines in responding to emails and phone calls. I rest my case. I hope the Minister of State takes what I have said about the Teaching Council on board.
Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator O’Loughlin and I know this is a major issue in education, there is no doubt about that.
Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator for raising this matter, which gives me an opportunity to outline the role of the Teaching Council and its current structures and to highlight the role played by the Teaching Council to support teacher supply during Covid-19.
The Teaching Council was established in 2006 on a statutory basis through the Teaching Council Acts 2001 to 2015, to promote teaching as a profession; to promote the professional development of teachers; to maintain and improve the quality of teaching in the State; to provide for the establishment of standards, policies and procedures for the education and training of teachers; and to provide for the registration and regulation of teachers to enhance professional standards and competence. The Teaching Council Acts govern membership of the council, funding, accountability and the council's relationship with the Minister for Education. The council consists of 37 members.
The council has responsibility to operationalise the provisions of the Acts, including the development of organised structures and collaborative strategies for the regulation of the teaching profession, and it is responsible for the conduct of its affairs. Under section 55 of the Teaching Council Act 2001, the council prepares and publishes an annual report detailing its activities and proceedings. The council provides the Department of Education with a copy of the report and the report is laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. The annual report documents how the Teaching Council has implemented the Teaching Council Acts and progress of the council's strategic objectives.
Responsibility for the development and implementation of policy on education, including the performance of teachers, rests with the Minister under the education Acts 1878 to 2015. The Minister may seek advice from the Teaching Council under its enabling Act. As a body under the Department of Education, the Teaching Council adheres to the code of practice for the governance of State bodies. The agency governance framework is in place between the Department and the Teaching Council. This agency governance framework was established in 2018 in accordance with applicable statutory provisions, relevant national strategies, Government policies and the code of practice for State bodies.The agency's governance framework is due for review and renewal in 2021.
I acknowledge the important role the Teaching Council has played to support the supply of teachers over the past year during Covid-19. Following engagement with the council, the higher education institutes, HEIs, providing post-primary professional master of education programmes introduced flexibility in their course delivery to increase the amount of time which student teachers on school placement could provide for supervision and substitution, outside of their placement hours. In addition, the council has communicated with professional master of education students, through the HEIs, encouraging them to register with the council and to register also their availability with Sub Seeker, the recruitment portal which matches teachers with substitutable vacancies. The council has reassigned resources to this task to ensure applications for registration arising from this measure are processed as quickly as possible.
As an additional measure for 2020 and 2021, the council made a regulation allowing teachers who had qualified outside of Ireland to complete their induction here. This measure will again be put in place for the coming school year on a time-bound and exceptional basis. There are almost 109,000 teachers on the Teaching Council register. During the peak period of applications for registration between May and September 2020, almost 5,000 new registrations were processed.
Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail)
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I understand the reason for the Teaching Council and it is important it is efficient and effective. For the 109,000 teachers who are registered, there is a €65 fee, so there is quite a substantial amount of money going into the Teaching Council every year. However, the Teaching Council is not serving the teachers. I have a full file on those who have contacted me and that is just the tip of the iceberg in the issues they have had. I am sending that to the Minister for Education and I have also asked the Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to take up this issue of a review because it is very important. The significant delays I have outlined have caused a lot of problems and challenges for teachers, from a financial perspective as well as the possibility of them getting and keeping a job. Once they start, if teachers do not have their Teaching Council number, they are not allowed to apply for that job again, which puts them back in the jobs market. There is a lot of work to be done in reviewing the Teaching Council's function.
Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator for the views she has outlined, which I will pass on to the Minister for Education. It is an important issue which she raises, and in my constituency office over the years I have been a Deputy, many of the points the Senator has raised about the Teaching Council have also been raised with me. I will make sure the Senator's views are heard by the Minister.