Student numbers limit time to teach

Rising student numbers and workload increases are limiting the time available for teaching, support, and research by falling numbers of institute of technology lecturers, their union claims.

The Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) said the institutes have seen full-time student numbers rise by 18% to 11,310 from 2008 to last year.

However, in the same period, the number of lecturing staff in the 14 colleges fell almost 7% from 4,845 to 4,516, with more likely to have retired up to the end-of-February deadline to avoid pension cuts.