*Minister for Education, Norma Foley (FF). Photograph: Gary Collins
INSUFFICIENT EFFORTS have been exerted to tackle the shortage of teachers in the locality, a regional representative has outlined.
Co Clare may be benefitting from an increasing amount of teachers who have quit working in the capital due to rising costs of living but there is a shortage experienced in the locality but is most acute in urban areas.
Casteltroy based, Eric Nelligan who is the Aontú PRO for the Mid-West believed both Minister for Education, Norma Foley (FF) and Minister for Higher Education, Simon Harris (FG) were not active enough in tackling a growing shortage of teachers across the Irish education system.
A survey carried out in March of this year when 55 percent of secondary school principals reported that that they had unfilled vacancies at that time, outlined that 84 percent of principals said they had experienced situations that during this school year where no teacher applied for an advertised post. The survey of more than 2,500 teachers was conducted by RedC on behalf of the Association of Secondary Teachers’ Ireland (ASTI).
Eric said, ‘’The teacher shortage has been growing over the past few years. The efforts being made have been shown to be ineffectual. The current Ministers with responsibility have overseen a worsening supply of teachers”.
He added, ‘’Surveys have given clear reasons for the shortage of teachers; Inadequate numbers of teachers graduating in certain subjects, the cost of the two-year Professional Master of Education, the decline in the attractiveness of teaching as a profession with the two-tier pay scales and larger class sizes and poorer working conditions when compared colleagues across the OECD. Urban areas and their commuter belt are particularly negatively affected by the exorbitant rise in the general cost of living and the unattractiveness of living in cities due to high rent, housing and the return of the long commutes’’.
Children’s education has been “disadvantaged because in too many cases teachers cannot afford to live in certain areas,” he concluded.
