Students face reduced subject choice and larger classes amid teacher shortages

ASTI general secretary Kieran Christie warned: 'Up to 500 classrooms a day in schools will have no teacher in front of them.' Stock picture: Ben Birchall

Teachers' unions have warned that students may be forced to change subjects and cope with larger class sizes in September due to a teacher recruitment crisis.

The Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) said the continuing teacher recruitment and retention crisis will restrict subject options available to students and could also threaten planned redevelopment at Senior Cycle.

It is ‘completely unacceptable’ that the Department of Education seems to be trying to ‘ride out’ the ongoing crisis until student numbers fall at second level due to demographics, the TUI said. TUI general secretary Michael Gillespie said: 

This crisis is worsening all the time, and while initially only a few subjects were affected, schools are now experiencing significant difficulty employing teachers across the full breadth of subjects. 

“The cosmetic measures announced to date by the department have fallen far short of what is required, and as a result students in many schools continue to have less access to the full range of subjects."

"In addition, teacher shortages represent a clear threat to the current process of Senior Cycle redevelopment. 

"Smaller class sizes are required to ensure that the type of modern, experiential learning envisaged by the redevelopment can take place and to ensure that student work on additional assessment components can be fully supported by teachers. 

TUI general secretary Michael Gillespie said 'teacher shortages represent a clear threat to the current process of Senior Cycle redevelopment.' Picture: Tommy Clancy

"How can change of this magnitude be properly implemented if schools continue to struggle to recruit and retain classroom teachers?"

The union is again calling on the Department of Education to introduce five key measures to tackle teacher shortages in second level schools:

• Increase full-time, permanent jobs from initial appointment. Only 35% of those recently appointed received a contract of full hours upon initial appointment, with just 12% offered a permanent position on appointment; 
• Boost retention by restoring career structures cut during last recession – particularly posts of responsibility; 
• Reduce the two-year Professional Master of Education (PME) required to become a second-level teacher back to one year; 
• Eliminate the red tape that hinders Irish teachers working overseas in returning to take up positions in Ireland, including awarding full incremental credit for their service abroad; 
• Tackle the ever-increasing workload, particularly bureaucratic work.

Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) general secretary Kieran Christie said that some 500 post-primary teaching positions remain unfilled, leaving hundreds of classes without a teacher in September. He said: 

Up to 500 classrooms a day in schools will have no teacher in front of them.

“You've got an extraordinary crisis. And the coping mechanisms that schools have to use to deal with this is the use of unqualified teachers and assigning special education needs teachers to mainstream classes.

“So students with special education needs are the big losers.

“Last year we found that up to one-fifth of schools had been forced to remove a subject or subjects from the curriculum that we couldn't provide [a teacher for].

“There needs to be a fundamental shift in the thinking in the Department of Education. They need to do more to lure teachers to return from other countries.”