Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Ensuring that every child's experience in school is positive and that they have qualified, engaged teachers available to support them in their learning is a priority area of action for the Government.

Like many sectors, recruitment challenges exist in the education sector. The number of teachers is at a record high, with over 79,000 currently employed. Teaching posts have grown by over 10,400 in the past five years, outpacing student growth.

To address teacher supply issues, my Department has implemented several measures that have led to:

• an increase of 20% in Initial Teacher Education graduates (student teachers) between 2018 and 2023, and
• a 30% increase in the number of teachers registered with the Teaching Council since 2017.

I am committed to addressing teacher supply, and announced new teacher supply measures in recent months including assisting teachers gain permanent roles more quickly. Several measures are already in place to support teachers who either qualified in the State or abroad and who are working abroad. Measures introduced in recent budgets include more flexible substitution measures, promotion of the teaching profession as a career and workforce planning for teachers and SNAs, reflect the commitment to ongoing investment in the education system?to address teacher supply.

The recruitment and appointment of teachers for teaching positions is managed by individual school authorities. There are over 3,000 individual primary school authorities, responsible for this process, including boards of management, as well as Education and Training Boards (ETBs).?? Given that school authorities manage the recruitment process independently, and as recruitment by school authorities is continuing, it is not possible to summarise the status of recent teacher recruitment. An analysis, however, has been undertaken of teacher payroll data to obtain a better understanding of the teacher workforce. The latest teacher payroll data, as of March 2025, shows there are 79,225 teachers employed in our schools across the country with 43,221 at primary level including special schools. The number of unfilled posts remain low at 2.5% as of March 2025. There are less than 1% resignations in the primary sector each year and 1.6% in post-primary. The number of teachers who retired over the past number of years has varied, with 932 in 2013 and 1,074 in 2023.

The data available on temporary contracts in primary schools indicates that 85% of newly appointed primary teachers in 2024/25 school year are on full-time, mostly fixed-term contracts. 93% of teachers with 5+ years’ experience hold permanent full-time or pro-rata contracts. The available data for primary teachers on fixed term contracts is set out in the following table.

Count of Fixed Term Contracted Teachers	Primary
2023/24	6,068
2024/25	5,857

The profession is attractive, with strong demand for teacher education programmes with 1,846 newly qualified primary teachers registered with the Teaching Council in 2024. Salaries are competitive, with primary teachers currently starting at €44,879 rising to €85,000 under the current pay deal and first preference data from the CAO published in February showed an increase in primary of 9%.

In addition to recently announced measures, I will continue to consider further measures to strengthen the teaching workforce and ensure that schools have the support needed to provide an excellent education for every student.