Tackling teacher shortages in our schools must be a top priority for the new Minister for Education, according to Social Democrats TD Jen Cummins.<\/p>\n
Deputy Cummins, who was announced today as the party\u2019s new education spokesperson, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cSecondary schools around the country are continuing to grapple with serious teacher recruitment and retention challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cA recent survey carried out by the Principals\u2019 and Deputy Principals\u2019 Association of the Teachers\u2019 Union of Ireland paints a deeply worrying picture of our education system.<\/p>\n
\u201cA particularly concerning finding was that 75 per cent of schools with teacher vacancies received no applications after they advertised the positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, the survey found that 40 per cent of schools had to limit students\u2019 access to particular subjects because of a shortage of teachers in these areas, with maths, Irish and French the most difficult posts to fill.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to lose talented teacher graduates to other countries if the government does not take urgent steps to address some of the issues underpinning this crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to incentivise people to take up teaching as a career, which means removing the financial and academic barriers they face while studying. There is also more that could be done to encourage people from diverse backgrounds to enter the profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrecarious employment is another issue impacting teacher recruitment and retention. Teachers must be offered permanent, full-time jobs upon their initial appointment, as well as the prospect of career progression.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecruitment issues will also persist if the underlying causes of the housing crisis are not addressed by the government, with many teachers unable to afford to live in urban areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf allowed to continue unchecked, the situation facing our schools will only get worse. The new Education Minister Helen McEntee must hit the ground running on this issue and not sleepwalk through the teacher recruitment crisis the way her predecessor did.\u201d<\/p>\n
January 30, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tackling teacher shortages in our schools must be a top priority for the new Minister for Education, according to Social Democrats TD Jen Cummins. Deputy Cummins, who was announced today as the party\u2019s new education spokesperson, said: \u201cSecondary schools around the country are continuing to grapple with serious teacher recruitment and retention challenges. \u201cA recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,581,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-jen-cummins","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n