Over half of newly-recruited Irish teachers would consider work overseas

The study - conducted by the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) - also found that one-in-three Irish teachers who entered the profession since January 2011 took longer than three years to be offered a full hours contract.

Incredibly, 99.5pc of teachers surveyed said it would be very difficult to secure new accommodation in the locality they are currently living in if they had to vacate their current address.

Some 35pc of teachers surveyed said they knew colleagues who had ceased employment at their school due to the accommodation crisis.

A whopping 78pc said they believed Ireland's housing and accommodation crisis has had an adverse effect on the lives of students in their area.

Recruitment and retention of staff has now been cited as an escalating crisis for Irish schools.

TUI President David Waters warned that the stark findings of the survey now require urgent action by the Government.

The study was conducted over 736 TUI members in March with 71pc working in post-primary and 29pc working in further education and training.

Mr Waters said the education sector now faced stark challenges and desperately required additional investment.

"We know from international colleagues that Ireland is far from unique in having a teacher recruitment and retention crisis," he said.

"This means that other education systems will increasingly seek out our highly qualified graduates unless they are incentivised to stay here."

"Failure to do so will undoubtedly see the crisis worsen greatly. We’ve seen enough ‘sticking plaster’ measures from the Department (of Education) – real action is now a necessity to keep teachers in front of classrooms."

"At a time when schools are struggling to hire teachers, only 35pc of those recently appointed received a contract of full hours upon initial appointment, with just 12pc offered a permanent position on appointment."

"Schools must be provided with enhanced allocations so that they can provide secure jobs on full hours if graduates are to choose Ireland over other jurisdictions. Similarly, we need to recognise overseas teaching experience for incremental purposes here if we are to attract Irish teachers back to these shores. Serious consideration should also be given to halving the duration of the two-year Professional Master of Education (PME)."

The TUI boss stressed that it wasn't just a question of recruiting new teachers - but he said the study underlined the importance of retaining teachers already on staff, many of whom are increasingly disillusioned.

"Of those respondents who have been employed in the profession for a period of less than ten years, over half (51pc) said that they would consider leaving Ireland to teach in another country."

"From a list, they cited disillusionment with their teaching job in Ireland, the opportunity to save money and issues related to the accommodation crisis as being the top three factors."

"We believe that enhancing career opportunities and reinstating allowances that were cut during the last recession would have a significant impact in tackling teacher shortages."

"Posts of responsibility, which ensure the effective running of schools while providing pastoral support for students, have not been fully restored since being cut in the last recession."

"Some 71pc of respondents do not believe that there are enough of these posts in their schools, while 93pc believe that the challenges faced by young people have increased in the last five years, which shows the necessity of enhancing this pastoral support system for students."

"Only 15pc disagreed that they would be more likely to remain in the profession if more assistant principal posts became available."

The teachers who said they would now consider leaving Ireland to work overseas for a period of time cited three main reasons for doing so including disillusionment with the teaching jobs in Ireland, the requirement to save money and the unavailability/unaffordability of accommodation in Ireland.

A whopping 81pc of teachers cited recruitment difficulties as having a negative effect on their school.

Critically, the study also indicated that teachers believed bureaucracy was impacting their frontline teaching.

"Ever-increasing workload, particularly that of a bureaucratic nature, continues to be a demoralising factor, and one that sees many leave the profession."

"Some 92pc agreed that bureaucratic duties regularly deflect from the core role of teaching, while 93pc agreed that such duties have increased since they commenced their career."

"Teachers want to teach, not tick boxes or attend meetings that benefit neither them nor their students."

The TUI study also underlined that the profession, like many other aspects of society, needed to be able to respond to the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence.

"AI is clearly an area that is already having a significant effect on the education system. Some 89pc believe that the Department of Education needs to provide continuing professional development (CPD) in relation to AI, while 83pc want to see more guidelines and information from the departments on the usage of AI in education."

Another major issue highlighted was ongoing reform within the secondary school cycle.

"Teachers are in favour of positive Senior Cycle reform that benefits the education system, but there are serious concerns about resourcing."

"Half of respondents do not believe that their school has the facilities for student work on additional assessment components as part of Leaving Certificate assessment within their subject area, while 66pc do not believe that their school has the required resources to provide new subjects such as drama, film and theatre studies and climate action and sustainable development which are due to be introduced from 2025/26."

"In international terms, our investment level is shamefully low, particularly at second level where our spend as a percentage of GDP is half the OECD average."

"If we are serious about aspiring to have a world class education system, our policymakers must match the commitment of students and educators by appropriately funding the sector."

"As communities all over the country will be aware, the voluntary extracurricular work of teachers in areas such as sports, music, drama etc is of significant value to young people. Over half of respondents take part in such work, with almost 45pc spending between two and four hours a week on these activities."

The TUI represents over 20,500 teachers and lecturers in second level schools, further education and training colleges and centres as well as technological universities/institutes of technology.

Both Education Minister Norma Foley and Junior High Education Minister Niall Collins will address the three-day TUI conference which opens in Killarney on Tuesday.

They will be pressed by union leaders and delegates to develop specific measures to target staff recruitment.

A key proposal will be enhanced systems to attract trained Irish teachers back home from abroad.

The 2024 conference - which will be attended by over 500 delegates - will revolve around the theme 'educate, advocate & empower.'