Unqualified people teaching in schools

MORE than 1,500 unqualified people are teaching children in Irish schools, the INTO has warned.

Around 800 have no teaching qualification at all while the rest have a post-primary teaching degree or a teaching degree earned in Northern Ireland or Britain.

Speaking on the second day of the INTO’s national conference in Bundoran, Co Donegal, deputy general secretary Catherine Byrne said it was having a very damaging effect on children and teachers.