Primary principals demand early recruitment drive to stop new teachers going abroad 

'We need all the teachers that are out there. We might need to look at recruiting them and giving them a fixed-term contract for their first year.' File photo: iStock

Recruitment for teachers for September 2023 needs to begin earlier, principals are warning, in order to hold on to as many newly-qualified graduates as possible.

Primary school principals want the early recruitment campaign for the next school year amidst “active recruitment” from other jurisdictions.

Schools need to be “in the middle” of recruiting by mid-April, according to Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN) chief executive Páiric Clerkin. He said: 

We really need to bring forward the recruitment process this year, and we need to be in the middle of recruiting in the third [school] term.

The third term of the primary school year coincides with the end of the academic term for many teaching courses.

“We need to try and get the teachers before they go off elsewhere,” Mr Clerkin added.

“If our recruitment is delayed as it was last year until the summer holidays, a lot of those teachers will already be gone.

“They’ll be gone abroad; they’ll have been recruited. 

There is active recruitment already from other jurisdictions, we need to be in there early to offer them a job and hold on to them next year.”

The Department of Education has assured the IPPN that circulars will be ready to go out to schools by the end of the month or early next month, he said.

“That’ll be a big improvement on last year but we really need to get panels cleared and be ready to recruit as early as possible in the third term so we can hold on to as many of the newly qualified teachers as possible.

“We really need to look outside the box and think outside the box,” Mr. Clerkin added.

“We need all the teachers that are out there. We might need to look at recruiting them and giving them a fixed-term contract for their first year.

“If they don’t get a fixed-term contract with a school, there will be plenty of work on the supply panels.”

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A survey by the IPPN published in November found that many primary schools nationwide were struggling to achieve their full staffing allocation.

Almost 85% of the 1,000 schools that took part said they had to relocate a special education teacher to cover a teacher’s absence from a mainstream class.

A further 87% of the schools that took part reported ongoing challenges recruiting substitute teachers.