New teachers to be offered permanent contracts

Newly qualified teachers will be offered a permanent contract for September 2026. Picture: Danny Lawson/PA

All new teachers, many of whom will be graduating in the coming weeks, are to be offered a permanent contract for September 2026 under plans to address ongoing teaching supply issues.

Primary and post-primary newly qualified teachers starting in schools this September will be offered a permanent teaching contract.

Teachers’ unions have described current recruitment and retention issues in education as a “crisis”, particularly in Dublin, that is leading schools to drop certain subjects or hire unqualified teaching staff to plug absences.

The new plans are being put forward by education minister Helen McEntee.

The contracts will be offered to new teachers once they have completed their induction, taught for a year, and successfully gained a teaching role for the following year.

Ms McEntee is also working with the Teaching Council to allow eligible teachers who have qualified outside of Ireland to register and complete their teaching induction here in Ireland.

The announcement comes as the first of the 2025 annual teachers’ union congresses gets under way today.

There are now more than 78,000 qualified teachers employed in Ireland, including over 35,000 working in post-primary schools.

According to the Department of Education, this is the largest number of teachers in the history of the State.

Ms McEntee said: “For their sake, I am determined to address job security, make teaching a more attractive, sustainable career.

“Making it easier for eligible teachers who trained outside of Ireland to apply for registration and to begin their careers in Ireland, and expediting access to permanent contracts for newly qualified teachers are important steps in this process.” 

Allowing newly qualified teachers to gain a permanent contract a year earlier will help teachers to place their careers on a more stable footing “much sooner”, she said.

Ms McEntee added: “This will provide teachers with the certainty that they need, particularly when applying for mortgages.” 

Increase in number of student teachers

There has been a 20% increase in the number of student teachers graduating between 2018 and 2023, as well as a 30% rise in teachers registered with the Teaching Council since 2017.

However, many schools struggle with a shortage of teachers, particularly in the Dublin area, which previously prompted calls for a ‘Dublin allowance’.

It emerged last month that 98% of Irish schools had employed unqualified individuals to stand in for teachers during the 2023/24 school year.

School principals have increasingly had to rely on those not registered with the Teaching Council when a qualified substitute teacher cannot be sourced.

Annual recruitment drives for schools in Australia and other overseas countries tend to begin each year as students prepare to graduate, offering interested Irish teachers visa fees, travel costs, and competitive salaries to relocate.