Ireland is facing a crisis in teacher employment next year if cuts in school staffing are not reversed, the primary teachers' union has warned.
Delegates at the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation conference in Sligo have been told that hundreds of newly qualified teachers are without regular work and, with 700 jobs in primary schools to go in September, the situation is set to worsen.
The union warned that a further 2,000 primary teachers will face emigration or unemployment when they graduate from colleges of education in May.
Teacher employment is the single biggest challenge facing primary teachers now, INTO president Jim Higgins told the 750 delegates today.
The cutbacks planned for next September and further threatened reductions as part of the four year austerity plan would take even more teachers out of the system, Mr Higgins warned.
“Every one of these decisions creates unemployment,” he said. “There may not be any compulsory redundancies but there are what can be called collateral redundancies. Every qualified teacher forced into emigration or onto the dole queue is a victim of this collateral redundancy.”
South Dublin principal John Boyle said that up to a 1,000 teachers would be “exported like cattle” from Ireland over the next five years.
“This conference is all about jobs, jobs, jobs. If we don’t fight this there will be one teacher unemployed for every five in work in Ireland by 2016.”
President of St Patrick’s College Students Union Pauline Flanagan spoke of an atmosphere of “stress and anxiety” in the teacher training colleges as student teachers worried about their future in Ireland.
Describing the employment situation as “grim”, she was particularly critical of schools employing retired or unqualified staff for substitute positions rather than providing work for newly qualified teachers.
Some 400 people without teaching qualifications taught for 50 days or more in the current academic year, according to a Department of Education and Skills FOI report published yesterday.
The report also revealed that large numbers of retired teachers are taking up substitute posts in primary schools. Retired primary teachers filled 975 positions in schools this year. Over 50 retired teachers took positions lasting more than 50 days.
Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn yesterday described the situation of retired teachers taking up jobs in schools as “unacceptable.”
INTO delegates voted in favour of establishing a Task Force on Teacher Employment as part of a concerted campaign on the issue.