Lack of male primary teachers: Irish language rule not to blame

THE falling numbers of male primary school teachers is not because of the high standard of Irish needed, a study has revealed.

A number of studies in recent years have pointed to the fact that men do less well than women in Irish at school as a factor, as entry to primary teaching degree courses requires at least a higher level grade C in Leaving Certificate Irish.

Efforts by government, teachers and schools to increase the number of men have increased in recent years, as they account for just 17% — fewer than 5,000 — of the country’s 26,000 primary teachers. In 1940, women made up 57% of primary school teaching staff, but that rose to 82% by 2003.

There have been calls from opposition parties and teacher unions to change the requirement and focus on Irish achievement at the end of training rather than pre-entry, to try and reverse the drop in male teacher numbers. But the study published in the Department of Education journal, Oideas, refutes the argument that Irish poses a barrier to men becoming primary teachers.

Author Oilibhéir Ó Braonáin, a Co Tipperary primary teacher with a master degree in education, claims the feminisation of the profession reflects global trends. He wrote that an average of 4,000 young men have achieved the minimum Irish requirement in the Leaving Certificate every year to make them eligible to apply for teacher training, describing this as a large pool of potential male trainee teachers for the limited number of places.

But fewer than 300 of the 4,932 males who sat higher level Leaving Certificate Irish in 2004 listed teacher training as their first preference degree course. Mr Ó Braonáin also pointed out that the dropping of rules, which up to 1993 required all teacher training applicants to pass an Irish interview, had not stemmed the falling number of male teachers.

He suggested the abolition of the Irish requirement could lead to greater feminisation of teaching as far more girls achieve the Leaving Certificate points needed for teacher training college each year and more of them would become eligible if they did not need to have higher level Irish.

The author said that a small increase in the proportion of male applications for primary teaching degrees since 2005 is a sign of success of a Department of Education campaign to recruit more male teachers.