The Department of Education is to recruit 1,000 new teachers, starting next September, at a cost of £20 million.
This represents the largest number of new teaching posts created in the Republic, the Minister for Education, Mr al Martin, said yesterday.
Most of the teachers will be allocated to improving the "general staffing" of secondary schools, where the pupil/teacher ratio stands at 19:1.
The new appointments will also help to reduce the primary school pupil/teacher ratio to 20:1 for the first time.
The ratios are being improved also because 700 temporary teaching posts have been retained, with the teachers being given permanent jobs.
The announcement is good news for secondary school teachers, who often have to wait several years before being offered permanent employment.
Because there is a shortage of trained primary teachers, about 700 of the new posts will be allocated to secondary schools.
Mr Martin has set up an expert group to advise him on how to allocate the teachers.
The normal criterion for allocating teachers is based on the teacher/pupil ratio in schools, but the Department wants to retain flexibility to deal with the requirements of individual schools.
Apart from the 700 teachers devoted to general staffing, another 100 are expected to be appointed by secondary schools arising from initiatives on early school-leaving.
Mr Martin said this would involve teachers specifically working to prevent early leaving.
The remaining 200 will be allocated to primary schools participating in programmes dealing with disadvantage.
Mr Martin said the shortage of primary school teachers was not a long-term problem because the number of places in primary teacher training colleges had increased in the last two years.
"The shortage will not be such a factor in subsequent years."
The Teachers' Union of Ireland said the distribution of the jobs should concentrate on alleviating high drop-out rates from schools, tackling educational disadvantage and increasing staffing in the post-Leaving Certificate area.
The Joint Managerial Body (JMB), which represents the management of voluntary secondary schools, said Mr Martin's announcement represented "a significant addition to the teaching resources of second-level schools".
The JMB said for too long there had been no "recognition of the operational means required by school managements to effect the necessary changes".