The Minister for Education should be tackling the teacher recruitment crisis instead of focusing her efforts on a proposed smartphone ban for secondary schools, according to Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon.<\/p>\n
Deputy Gannon, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on education, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the new term begins, principals around the country are once again scrambling to fill teacher vacancies in their schools, with hundreds of posts advertised this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is now almost two years since the Social Democrats put forward a range of measures aimed at dealing with teacher shortages. But attempts by Minister Foley to resolve the issue since then have been described as \u2018minimalist cosmetic interventions\u2019 by teachers and have failed to make a dent in the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur proposals included reducing the Professional Master of Education (PME) from two years to one to help address the significant costs of studying to be a teacher, which are in excess of \u20ac12,000. To date, the Minister has flatly refused to consider this practical measure to ease the financial burden placed on student teachers and their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Minister should be encouraging new teachers to remain in Ireland after they qualify. That means giving them permanent, full-time jobs on their initial appointment instead of temporary, precarious employment.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs schools reopen this week, the Minister\u2019s focus has been on a notional ban on smartphones in second-level classrooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sounds good in principle and such a ban would be positive if workable solutions could be found. However, because schools are managed by their patrons, this is not something that the Minister or her department have any real control over.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut other urgent issues facing schools around the country \u2013 such as teacher vacancies and capitation grant shortfalls \u2013 are all within the Minister\u2019s gift to resolve.\u201d<\/p>\n
August 22, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Minister for Education should be tackling the teacher recruitment crisis instead of focusing her efforts on a proposed smartphone ban for secondary schools, according to Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon. Deputy Gannon, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on education, said: \u201cAs the new term begins, principals around the country are once again scrambling to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,316,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-gary-gannon","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n