'Not one person has responded' to teaching ad - Cork principals highlight shortage of teachers

Two Cork secondary school principals have highlighted a shortage of teachers in the sector, and called for greater incentives to be offered to teaching graduates to attract more people to work in the area. 

Recent research from the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) showed that three quarters of schools did not receive a single application for an advertised teaching post in the 2022/23 school year, and that 81% of schools had to employ at least one unqualified teacher.

Colm Ó Corcora, principal of Coláiste an Chroí Naofa in Carrignavar, revealed his school currently has no chemistry teacher. 

“I have a problem filling a chemistry teaching vacancy," he said. "I put up an advertisement and not one person has responded. I am ringing around every principal wondering if they know of any chemistry teacher that has recently retired. I am also on to the head of the science teaching department at UCC to see if he has any students he can loan me.

“If I don’t get a chemistry teacher it will mean that I won’t be offering chemistry for our fifth-year students," Mr Ó Corcora added. "I have set aside chemistry for a bunch of students who want to do it, but I will have to take it off the table if I don’t get a new teacher. 

"God knows what I will do with the sixth-year students. 

"I have a couple of feelers out. I am not panicking yet."
The Cork principal explained that teaching posts in areas such as chemistry, French, physics, home economics and career guidance are "very tough to fill". 

“Graduates are being hoovered up by industry, which is then paying for their Masters and PhDs," he said. "If you are science graduate and go the teaching route, you must spend the bones of €11,000 on a teacher training course. We are coming to a stage where you need to give graduates some financial gain or an allowance to attract people in to teach specific subjects.

“Most people want to be teachers for a reason, and they are not driven by money," he added. "In subjects that there is a real difficulty in finding suitable candidates there needs to be some financial incentive - possibly some kind of allowance for the first year or paying people to do the Professional Master of Education (PME) as there is a big cost involved in that."

Calls To Reduce PME Time

Aaron Wolfe, principal of Coláiste Éamann Rís, suggested reducing the length of time required to complete the PME. 

“Different schools will have a different experience," he explained. "Finding maths teachers is a huge problem. Finding home economics teachers can also be tough. The government need to look at how to make teaching more attractive. One of the big ways to do that is shrink that PME back to one year instead of two years."

Mr Wolfe said schools in rural areas can find it more difficult to fill vacancies than those in the city. “We are near the university, and we haven’t had any problems. 

"What you would find is Dublin and rural schools would probably be very badly hit. 

"I have had no problem in filling our vacancies for the next academic year. I had 25 teaching vacancies and I filled them all. You don’t have plenty of applicants and I was lucky I went early with my advertisement.”