Cork school principal says special needs pupils hardest hit by teacher shortage

Children with special needs are the most profoundly affected by the ongoing primary school teacher shortage, a Cork principal has said.

The Irish National Teacher Organisation (INTO) has said that “the escalating crisis stems from the Government’s failure to adequately plan for teacher supply and the Department of Education’s inaction on key recommendations from the INTO”.

The INTO said that anecdotal evidence shows that an increasing number of teachers have left the country for work overseas, while many others are being forced to take leave due to the lack of affordable childcare.

This crisis has placed “an unbearable burden on school principals”, the union stated.

Dread

Speaking to The Echo, Cork INTO spokesperson and school principal Siobhán Buckley said: “I love my job, but as a principal, I dread when I get the unexpected call from a staff member who has fallen ill or needs to take unexpected leave, as they’re perfectly entitled to.

“I’m an administrative principal, but there are times when I teach the class myself and others when I need to call on my learning support teachers.

“I feel guilty going in and asking one to do the morning and another to do the afternoon, but there’s no continuity for students that way.”

Biggest losers

Ms Buckley, principal of Presentation National School in Millstreet, said that the situation is particularly bad in Dublin, where permanent or fixed-term positions are going unfilled, adding: “Down on our side of the country, day-to-day subbing is the problem, and the biggest losers are the children who so badly need learning support.

“They are the most vulnerable and they’re not getting the time to help them with their acute needs.”

Teachers and principals “are constantly plugging the same problems, problems that the Government is aware of and can anticipate,” said Ms Buckley, explaining that the INTO’s biggest ask is to train more teachers.

“It takes four years, so we’re not going to have the benefit of it until then, but this has been a problem for three or four years now; so if we started training more teachers then, we’d have them now.”

Accommodation

As the issues in Dublin are caused by accommodation prices, and rental prices in Cork are the second-highest in the country behind the capital, Ms Buckley said Cork would likely be next to experience the levels of shortage that are causing havoc in Dublin at the moment.

The INTO is now calling on the Government to convene an emergency meeting of stakeholders to develop immediate, short-term solutions that will provide principals with the support they urgently need, and to establish a national commission to find real, long-term solutions to the teacher supply crisis.