Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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518. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the measures, if any, that are being taken to identify and address obstacles to training and recruiting second level teachers. [54256/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Teaching Council is the body with statutory responsibility for establishing and maintaining standards in the teaching profession. It is also the designated competent authority for the recognition and assessment of qualifications and registration of teachers at primary and post primary levels.

In accordance with the Teaching Council [Registration] Regulations 2016 , applicants wishing to register with the Teaching Council under Route 2 Post Primary must have completed a programme of post-primary initial teacher education and must satisfy the Council that they meet all of the criteria for their chosen curricular subject, as set out in the Teaching Council Registration Curricular Subject Requirements (Post-Primary).

The study of the curricular subject during the degree must demonstrate that the holder has acquired sufficient knowledge, skills and understanding to teach the syllabus to the highest level in post-primary education.

As part of the Professional Master of Education (PME) application process, applicants are required to complete a subject declaration form providing details of the subjects for which they are qualified to teach and are seeking to have recorded on the Teaching Council’s Register of Teachers. The subject declaration form allows the applicant to match their degree and other qualifications if applicable against the Teaching Council’s curricular teaching subject requirements.

Changes to the duration and content of all initial teacher education (ITE) programmes were made in response to recommendations in the National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy among children and Young People 2011-2020 and were incorporated into the Teaching Council’s Policy Paper on the Continuum of Teacher Education and Criteria and Guidelines for Programme Providers. Both were published in 2011.

The changes made to post graduate ITE programmes included the reconfiguration of their content and an increase in their duration to two years. The increase in duration allows for substantial periods of school placement, which is central to student teacher development, and a number of mandatory elements such as literacy and numeracy, adolescent learning and teaching, learning and assessment. These reforms are focused on improving the quality of teaching in our schools, which is central to the educational outcomes of our children.

Programmes of initial teacher education remain oversubscribed and the change to the programme duration has not resulted in a lesser annual throughput of teachers through this route. There are no plans to reduce the duration of the postgraduate ITE programmes to one year.

My Department runs a comprehensive programme of work to support the supply of post primary teachers to our schools.

Following engagement with the Higher Education Authority, Higher Education Institutes providing ITE programmes have, in recent years, put in place new 4-year ITE undergraduate programmes in a number of post-primary priority subject areas, including Irish, mathematics, computer science and modern foreign languages.

It should be noted that, in 2022, applications (total mentions) for post primary education degrees through the CAO increased by 16.8% and first preferences by 9.2% (July 2022 v July 2021).

In accordance with my Department’s Teacher Supply Action Plan, the Department requested the HEA to manage, on its behalf, a funding call to ITE providers for proposals for upskilling programmes for teachers in mathematics, physics, and Spanish. Approximately 170 teachers are expected to graduate from the upskilling programmes this year and we have increased the places on these programmes in the most recent intake. It is expected that over 300 teachers will graduate in 2023 and my Department has agreed to fund a third intake to the programmes in 2023. Programmes are provided free of charge to participating teachers.

My Department has also put in place a scheme to allow post-primary schools to share teachers in priority subjects. The aim of the scheme is to provide a way for schools to recruit teachers in the high demand subjects while also facilitating new teachers with a full time contract.

Work is ongoing in my Department to produce projections of post-primary teacher demand and supply on a subject level basis to inform teacher supply planning. A draft report is currently being finalised which it is intended to publish as a document for consultation with the education partners in the coming months. Ultimately, the intention is to establish a robust data based model for the effective projection of future teacher demand and supply.

The various measures to support teacher supply are underpinned by the Teaching Transformscampaign, which promotes the teaching profession and encourages students to follow a career in teaching. The campaign uses digital, radio and video media, and is supported by a dedicated webpage, www.gov.ie/teachingtransforms.