Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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756. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her proposals to ensure there will be an adequate supply of teachers for Gaelscoileanna and Gaelcholáistí over the next five years and beyond; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1319/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The development of a new policy for Irish-medium education outside the Gaeltacht is an important objective for my Department. The formation of this new policy will be part of the overall framework of the 20-year Strategy for the Irish language 2010-2030 and will build on the achievements of the Policy on Gaeltacht Education 2017-2022. The Policy will be an important step towards achieving the Programme for Government commitments on Irish-language education.

The key objectives of the policy are in accordance with the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030 and the Programme for Government 2020. They include:

- examining how the supply of teachers and other staff with a high standard of Irish can be increased to meet demand in Irish-medium education settings, and

- increasing the proportion of children and young people attending Irish-medium schools, including by building on the foundations laid in Irish-medium early learning and care settings (for example, naíonraí).

A public consultation process was launched on 27 October 2022 to gather the views of stakeholders, including young people, parents, education professionals, education stakeholders and Irish-language organisations. The consultation ran until 16 January 2023.

An Intradepartmental Working Group has been progressing work within the Department on the development of the policy. This has included the compilation and publication of a report on current supply and future provision of Irish-medium education, and the development of a public consultation process.

A Steering Committee has been established with representatives from relevant Government departments and agencies to oversee the development of the policy.

A number of actions are being taken to ensure that the new policy will be informed by current research including

- a review of national and international literature has been commissioned through a public procurement process and is being carried out by Sealbhú, DCU, and

- a report on current supply and future provision of Irish-medium education was compiled and published by my Department.

Research on Irish-medium aonaid and sruthanna (units and streams) in English-medium post-primary schools is being carried out on behalf of the Department.

My Department is undertaking a comprehensive programme to support the supply of teachers. Officials engage closely with school management bodies and other education stakeholders to inform this work.

To meet longer term teacher demand, higher education institutions have developed new 4 year initial teacher education programmes in a number of post-primary priority subject areas, including Irish, mathematics, computer science and modern foreign languages.

In addition, the Department fully funds teachers to participate in upskilling programmes in mathematics, physics and Spanish. The first cohort of participants, approximately 170 teachers, completed these programmes in 2022 and more than 300 teachers will graduate in 2023. It is also intended to commence an upskilling programme in Irish in 2023/24.

The Department introduced a scheme to allow post-primary schools to share teachers, the aim of which is to recruit teachers in high-demand subjects and give teachers a full-time teaching contract.

These measures are underpinned by the Teaching Transforms campaign which promotes the teaching profession and encourages students to follow a career in teaching. The campaign is supported by the dedicated webpage on gov.ie.

It is acknowledged that despite the positive impact of these important actions, work remains to be done to address teacher supply challenges. The Department continues to work closely and intensively with stakeholders to develop and implement creative solutions to address the teacher supply challenges for schools.