it was with both puzzlement and dismay that I learned that almost 2000 primary school posts have not been filled for the coming school year. The Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO), which represents primary school teachers, has declared a staffing crisis. Equally worrying is the crisis in second-level staffing where 70 per cent of schools have teacher shortages in specific subject areas. The word is that the situation at second level, like that at primary level, is hitting crisis point and that shortages similar to those in Britain are now inevitable. In Britain, 36,000 are leaving teaching annually. There are many schools that have had to close due to having no staff.

The result of the fall in the desirability of the teaching profession is that a considerable number of children will be deprived of opportunities to develop their giftedness and emotional, social and intellectual potential. It is no coincidence that a steady rise in home education is occurring.

What puzzles me is that earlier this year I read a Government statement that the teaching profession was in a healthy state and that no staffing crisis existed!

During the strike in spring I wrote that the least of the Government's problems was the 30 per cent pay rise being demanded by the secondary teachers. Money will not resolve the morale, leadership, philosophical, status, discipline and other problems that are draining the life blood of this essential profession.

What dismays me is that the official answer to the staffing crisis, which is going to worsen before Christmas when the pay deal is implemented, is to create more teacher-training places. There are a number of difficulties with this approach.

The first is that the applications for teacher places do not resolve the reasons why so many teachers have dropped out and why it is no longer seen as an attractive career option. In other words the staffing crisis is more deep-seated than low pay or more training places.

Surely the challenge for the Government is not in more training places but in how they make the profession more attractive. Emerging evidence suggests that a high percentage of new teachers leave within two to three years.

Certainly, in the immediate term, suspending the need for full Irish qualification may reduce some of the staff shortages, but this too does not deal with the causes of the crisis.

It never ceases to amaze me the way that governments, unions and the profession bury their heads in the sand and allow a crisis that has been developing well over the last decade to come to a critical point.

It means too that teachers in schools with staff shortages will be pressurised to take on a greater workload, double classes and bigger classes. Such stress is likely to lead to more teachers dropping out on the basis of stress, sickness or career moves, and who could blame them?

There are obvious issues that need to be dealt with, but there needs to be a serious and radical body created to tackle these challenges. Next to parenting, teaching is the most important profession in the country, but like all the "vocation" professions it has been exploited and neglected.

The shame of this rests with all of us, not just politicians. In our disputes we seem to so often forget that it is children's futures that we put at risk when we have a depleted and demoralised teaching profession.

Can we once and for all let go of the delusion that teachers have it easy, with what appears to be a short working day and long holidays. The fact is that burnout, apathy and psychosomatic illnesses are more common among teachers than any other profession. The fact is that the drop-out from teaching is high and will increase.

The fact is that big numbers of teachers "hate" teaching and that many are retiring before their time. The fact is that discipline problems, low staff morale, poor leadership, bullying, excessive role demands, high class sizes and poorly motivated students exist in many schools and are eating the heart out of the profession.

The low status of the profession is not helping, not to mention the mediocre salary scale. The issue that nobody seems to want to look at is that education has lost its holistic vision and been blinded by a performance and examination directed system. The nature and extent of teacher training also needs radical examination.

We are on the edge of the deep crisis that now exists in England. There is still time to stop the rot, but I am wondering who is listening?

Dr Tony Humphreys is a consultant clinical psychologist and author of A Different Kind of Teaching