Teacher shortages 'hurt pupils with additional needs the most'

'The biggest losers there are the children in learning support,' according to Siobhán Buckley, principal of Presentation National School, Millstreet, Cork.

Children with additional learning needs miss out the most due to staffing gaps in primary schools as special education teachers (SETs) are redeployed to cover absences.

The Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) has warned issues around the recruitment and retention of primary school teachers is having a “profound” impact on the quality of education. It comes as a new survey from the union found that almost 1,000 posts in primary schools are currently unfilled.

Schools also expect to have more vacancies arise between now and January; they forecast another 1,816 vacancies by early 2025, indicating an overall shortage of 2,767 teachers for the majority of this school year.

While Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow are in crisis, finding teachers to cover short-term absences is still a major difficulty for schools in Munster, according to Siobhán Buckley, principal of Presentation National School, Millstreet, Cork.

“Every teacher gets sick, every teacher will have a hospital appointment, it’s things like that. They are perfectly entitled to take that leave but it's trying to find a qualified teacher to go into those acute situations,” Ms Buckley said. 

It can be very stressful. Last year, I just couldn’t get anybody. When the students were on a break from the training colleges, they were my lifeline.

Principals who cannot source a substitute teacher are left with little options, she added. This includes teaching the class themselves if they are available or re-deploying an SET.

“In other words, taking a teacher out of learning support who is looking after our most vulnerable children and putting them into a mainstream class,” she explained.

“It's about having a mandated adult in front of a class. The biggest losers there are the children in learning support. The other option is splitting the class and sharing the load among all other classes.”

“That’s not ideal either. Children get a body of work to do, and they are expected to work away down the back of the room, the class teacher is trying to teach her own class, and it's not great to have upwards of 40 children in a room.”

In the 2024 survey, almost 60% of schools re-allocated SETs to cover absences in mainstream classes. There has been a notable rise in these re-allocations in Dublin, while other counties remained stagnant or declined.

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Despite more schools re-allocating SETs, the number of days SET teachers were deployed to mainstream classes has decreased, with most falling within the zero to five-day range. DEIS (Band 1) schools and gaelscoileanna reported increases in the use of SET teachers to cover for vacant mainstream class teaching posts.

According to Ms Buckley, permanent teaching posts are going unfilled. "There are fixed-term posts, which span the year, where you get paid for your holidays. Very attractive to any young teacher and they are not filled.” 

The Government has “rightly” taken steps to reduce Ireland’s pupil teacher ratio. “But the Government should have known that in doing that, and taking the demographics into account, that you would have to increase teacher supply, and that you would have to increase college places.”