School teaching crisis. How can children recieve a robust education?

[Meathrosie]

https://www.rte.ie/news/education/2024/1021/1476508-teacher-shortage/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGCzA1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQzY8acC-21UPgSNnLJ9oTwf2c7BLYcw81yjKXNH0sw-XpLzr_YeTt7Rgg_aem__2EV3GdNOY-wrmqJDc-Hyw

I'm dismayed reading this article.

A good start would be to put a stop to the 5 year career breaks and allow credits for those who have taught abroad.

It's a real worry. How will things look in 1, 3 or 5 years time? It's seems Minister Foley has her head in the sand.

As far as I know one of the biggest barriers is the compulsory Irish qualification. It excludes anyone non national or those who availed of the Irish exemption at leaving cert. Irish can easily be incorporated by a rotating teacher. I recently met a Spanish woman who was a qualified teacher in Spain but works in childcare here as she can't be a teacher for this reason.

Also funding for mature students, I know two people who went back to teach and they had quite steep fees. Both had children and it took a few years to save up.

It appears to be a Leinster or more specifically Dublin commuter belt issue. As everything else the issue is housing. Here in kerry there are more teachers than jobs, they can’t afford to move to where the jobs are because of the price of housing. Anecdotally from friends teaching in Limerick there’s similar issues there with more teachers then jobs.

The 5 year career break is a bit of a red herring. I'd be interested to see the numbers on how many teachers actually take 5 years "as soon as they are made permanent" which is what I read in the paper. As far as I know, a teacher can only take as many years as they have worked - so a newly permanent teacher has zero years worked up. (I'm open to correction on that). It's definitely the case though that career breaks can only be taken in two blocks, so if you take one year and later another year, that's the end of the career break allowance. Also, the second block of career break can only be taken after the same amount of time has been worked up . (It the length of service before the first career break I'm unsure of).

Career breaks are granted at the discretion of the board of management and are considered based on the needs of the school. A teacher can't just decide they're heading off. Plus, career breaks are granted on a year by year basis so just because a teacher has been granted one (or more subsequent) year(s) doesn't mean they will automatically get the further years they apply for.

Once again, it's the government falsely allocating responsibility for failings in the education system that they are destroying.

Often, a teacher who does take a longer career break is a mother with a young family who cannot afford childcare because... the government is also F-ing up that sector too

The career break is definitely an issue leading to shortages. But where does this leave the kids presently? Many children are being left down through no fault of their own.

What I don't understand is why they don't go and gain the necessary Irish qualifications?

It isn't unreasonable to insist on a level of competency in the national language. There are clear pathways for teachers to gain accreditation.

@Marblesbackagain absolutely agree with you. I wouldn't go to Switzerland & want to teach without being able to speak French & German. Or teach in a Welsh school without Welsh. It's a compulsory requirement & if they wanted to teach that badly they would learn Irish.

I live in a huge county with loafs of schools and there’s like 6 jobs advertise on education posts in my county 🤷‍♀️ I don’t get it. Is this just in Dublin ? I know plenty of teachers who can’t get work ?

@Nowherehere1 my county is the same. Not the OPs fault but I really hate when things like this are framed as nationwide issues because it misses the point entirely and causes people to focus on the wrong thing (mandatory Irish, career break) when actually with the correct information it’s obvious that it’s a housing and cost of living issue.

There is nearly 1000 teacher roles vacancies across the country. Most are in Dublin. In our local area all the schools added an extra SEN class at each year so that is 40+ hirees needed.

I’m in a huge county and there’s 5 jobs in post primary in my entire county advertised on education posts….

It is whatever it is. They want to ruin family life.
I hope at least maths, English and some traditional European history are still taught, since this country soon will suffer the biggest cultural war that ever has been

Are you okay Hun? You appear a tad confused 🤔

Not as confused as you are hun, cause you've already lost your marbles, as I can see from 1 mile

Well you just keep spouting the fake news. It provides entertainment to the rest of us sane people. 🤣😂🤣😂🤣🤣

100% this. I've worked in education for almost 30 years. This isn't about career breaks or mandatory Irish. This is a cost of living problem. Schools in Dublin cannot recruit teachers because teachers cannot afford to live in Dublin. I know that the CoL crisis has hit lots of sectors, but it is important that parents know why lots of Dublin schools have had no choice but to pull teachers out of SET or employ teachers who are not qualified. I can't comment on the situation outside of Dublin, but I know firsthand of the difficulty recruiting and it's virtually impossible now.