11.5 Early years educators, teachers,

11.5 Early years educators, teachers, setting and school leaders

The opening chapter of this Report has described how several initiatives have been taken, under the direction of the Department’s Working Group and Advisory Group on Teacher Supply, to increase the supply of teachers for schools. Research work, principally by the Department’s Statistics Section, has given the Department a much clearer picture of the likely availability of newly qualified and other teachers and has assisted the planning of student teacher numbers at third level. The successful recruitment of student teachers into newly established or expanded teacher education programmes in support of Irish-medium settings has been noted above, and several steps were made to enable graduates of specific subjects to re-train as teachers.

All of these initiatives will continue to be required in the years immediately ahead. While pupil numbers at primary level are now falling, this is not the case at post-primary level, where student numbers are expected to grow until 2024. It is also worth noting that improvements to pupil-teacher ratios occurred mainly at primary level, other than during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, if resources and personnel permit, it would be advisable to prioritise lower student-teacher ratios at post-primary level in the years ahead, particularly in view of the likely demands of senior cycle reform.

As discussed above in the section on early learning and care, very significant steps have been taken to identify and plan for improvements in the initial and continuing education of early years educators and in their terms and conditions of work. All of that is to be welcomed. This may help to address the recruitment challenges that are being experienced in that sector and which may grow if the proportion of young children availing of publicly funded ELC provision increases as expected.

Throughout the period covered by this report, the professional networks of schools principals and deputy principals (the Irish Primary Principals’ Network at primary level and the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals at post-primary level) and the Centre for School Leadership (CSL) continued to receive Departmental support. Both of the networks continued to provide a broad range of services to support the professional development and work of school principals, while CSL developed frameworks that underpinned the commissioning of third level leadership programmes for existing and aspiring school leaders. The encouragement that all three provide for the formation and sustaining of professional networks among school leaders was vital during the COVID-19 crisis and will remain important as curriculum change occurs at primary and senior cycle levels.

The forthcoming publication of a Strategy for Initial Teacher Education by the Department is a very welcome development as it has the potential to bring a new level of coherence to the planning of teacher supply and to improving the quality of Irish teachers. The full integration of support services into a single school support service is also planned. It is hoped that some of the areas of teachers’ practice that are identified through this report as requiring improvement can be addressed as these policies are implemented. In that regard, the establishment of a professorial chair in assessment in 2015, and the subsequent establishment of the Centre for Assessment Research, Policy and Practice in Education (CARPE) in Dublin City University are most welcome developments, bringing as they do the potential, over the medium term, to improve teachers’ understanding of, and capacity to use, assessment within the teaching and learning process.