By Caitlín Martin
Every September, as classrooms across Ireland fill with the buzz of a new school year, a familiar story resurfaces: the scramble to find teachers. The well-documented staffing crisis, which has become an annual feature of Irish primary schools, shows no sign of abating.
However, this is not the whole picture. In certain counties, staff shortages are minimal or non-existent; instead, it is teachers who find it almost impossible to secure a full-time contract. In other words, while urban schools struggle to fill posts, many teachers in the West are struggling to find them.
A poll carried out by the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) in partnership with the Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN) at the beginning of the school year found that there were more than 1,000 vacancies in primary schools due to difficulties in filling permanent and fixed-term positions. The survey reported that the problem was most acute in urban areas such as Dublin City, Kildare, Wicklow, and Meath. INTO secretary John O’Boyle described the findings as a deeply concerning picture of an enormous crisis. The cost and availability of housing in the capital and other urban areas is a significant factor in the shortage, with many younger teachers unable to afford or even access accommodation.
Across the Shannon, however, the landscape looks very different. Here, there are too few opportunities for those who wish to stay. Many teachers who intended to move West have expressed disappointment at failing to secure long-term positions in the places they call home. In counties such as Galway and Mayo, excellent young teachers eager to return find themselves locked out of permanent contracts.
Galway has long been an attractive option for young teachers to develop their careers in a thriving and dynamic setting. Combining rural West-of-Ireland beauty with a vibrant city scene, Galway offers the best of both worlds to young professionals. However, the possibility of securing any teaching position, from subbing to fixed-term contracts, is now extremely limited for these ambitious graduates.
Sarah Holland, a newly qualified primary teacher from Galway City, has experienced this reality first-hand. “I had just finished college and hoped to live at home for a year to save some money, but there are simply no jobs in Galway,” she explains.
The chance to remain in her family home, in the city where she grew up, is an opportunity she has had to forgo. By the end of August, she had accepted a fixed-term contract in the capital. “Even getting subbing work in Galway is extremely difficult. I’ve had to move to Dublin, where all of my income goes on rent. I can’t save anything at all.”
Maria Carroll, a member of the leadership team in a large school in Co. Mayo, has witnessed this frustration. “Permanency depends on the panel in many cases in rural Ireland,” she explains. “Low turnover of staff and smaller school sizes also contribute to the lack of full-time and fixed-term posts.” The result, she says, is a generation of teachers left discouraged, their career paths dictated not by ability or ambition but by geography.
For Carroll, the consequences go beyond staffing rosters. As a teacher with many years of experience, she feels the government is failing not only the teachers, but also the children in their care. “There needs to be an element of choice for our young teachers, whether it is in the wilds of Connemara or the inner city.”
Helen McEntee, the Minister for Education and Youth since January, has pledged to increase the number of teaching allocations to combat vacancies. How to solve the geographical imbalance, however, remains a problem none of her predecessors have managed to crack.