Teacher Conferences: Lower pay and lack of permanent jobs drive teachers abroad

Lower pay and a shortage of permanent jobs at home are driving recent teaching graduates to the Middle East and elsewhere overseas, a union leader claims.

With the issue of restoring equal pay for recently-qualified teachers high on the agenda at the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO), its president Rosena Jordan warned that standards would start to slip as some schools struggle to fill even short-term vacancies with qualified substitutes.

She told delegates at the INTO’s annual congress in Belfast that the union’s priority is fair pay for teachers, describing a deal with the Department of Education last September to partially restore cuts to those who started in the job from 2012 onwards as a significant achievement.