Rule demanding schools hire only qualified teachers could hit subject choices
The deadline, announced by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, means that those who do not have a recognised qualification and are not registered with the Teaching Council, will not be paid for teaching work after Nov 1.
But while commencing Section 30 of the Teaching Council Act should end all but exceptional hiring of unqualified people in schools, there are concerns about the impact where teachers in certain subjects are not available.
In a letter to schools, the Department of Education says that where a school fails to find a registered teacher to fill a vacancy after Nov 1, they will have to meet requirements already in place under guidelines from Mr Quinn since last year.
But they will now be the subject of regulations to be issued before November, and will include an extra requirement that any un-registered person hired to teacher must have at least a level 7 ordinary bachelor degree.
Schools will still have to make all reasonable efforts first to find a registered teacher. An unregistered person will not be paid for more than five days of continuous work and schools must replace him or her if a registered teacher becomes available in the meantime.
The Joint Managerial Body (JMB) raised concerns directly with Mr Quinn at its conference this month, saying the complete lack of flexibility for schools will have serious unintended consequences.
“We struggle at times to replace teachers absent for a couple of weeks, let’s say a language teacher on parental leave. Where we fail we have often replaced them with a language national who is unregistered but who to the benefit of our pupils helps to improve their oral language skills,” said JMB president Fr Paul Connell.
“Now they must be content to sit in class supervised for two weeks by another subject teacher. We have made the point several times but as is often the case nobody listens to the advice from the coalface,” he said.
The department says certain jobs will not be considered teaching posts, and so will not be subject to the requirements. These will include people delivering Post-Leaving Certificate courses with specialist qualifications or experience but who are not qualified teachers.
“It is in the educational interests of students that the people delivering the courses have those specialist qualifications or experience, and it is in the public interest that such courses and activities can continue,” says the department letter to schools.
This will be welcome in the further education sector, where an estimated 100 staff and dozens of specialist courses were said to be under threat. It is unclear if they will have to be assigned new grades or pay scales.
