Schools drop subjects due to staff shortages: Unfilled vacancies in 67% of schools

Secondary schools are having to drop subjects or curtail extracurricular activities due to teacher shortages, with a Cork teacher claiming the situation “is getting worse every year”.

It comes as a new survey by polling company RedC and the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) found that 67% of schools are reporting unfilled vacancies.

John Byrne, a Cork ASTI standing committee representative and a teacher at Árdscoil Uí Urmoltaigh in Bandon, said that the survey and historical surveys “make for pretty grim reading”.

He told The Echo: “Some students are going back to school as early as next week, and there are hundreds of vacant posts still unfilled. The Government claim they’ve been making changes in terms of upskilling, substitution, and extra training places, but they’ve failed to address the chronic shortage.”

He said 77% of second-level schools had no applications for an advertised post or posts during the 2024/25 school year, up from 75% in 2023, and 67% of schools currently have unfilled vacancies, up from 46% in 2023.

The survey found 73% of respondents said they had to employ non-qualified/casual teachers to manage teacher supply issues, while 42% of schools removed a subject or subjects from the curriculum.

Mr Byrne said: “The survey looked at the reasons behind it as well, and in 2023, 61% of people said they didn’t find the teaching career attractive any more, but this year it’s up to 71%. In 2023, 37% of people had experience of teachers leaving their job and the education sector entirely. That’s now [up] to 52% who have experienced teachers leaving the profession.

“If there’s a teacher on sick leave, 90% of schools said they can’t find substitution; 30% of them had to take a teacher from the special educational needs department to cover mainstream classes. SENs are here to help our most vulnerable students who need extra support, so this creates huge inequalities if they’re denied that.

“Schools are also experiencing overcrowding in some classes — 21% of teachers said they had to merge higher- and ordinary-level students, which is also creating an unfair balance.

“It’s not just about academics; secondary school is not just about results but making well-rounded individuals, and extracurriculars are important for that. In 2023, 28% of teachers said they had to curtail extracurriculars, and now it’s up to 38%. That’s really going to impact students’ overall development,” he said.

Mr Byrne proposed that the two-year masters in education should be reduced.

“It’s an enormous cost to people — many teachers are in debt before they even begin, and then their starting pay is not even enough to make rent, especially in urban areas,” he said.

It takes more than 25 years to reach the top salary level, and there is an 11-year period with just three pay increases, he said, suggesting this incremental scale should be shortened. “The problems are increasing year on year — something needs to be done very, very rapidly.”

The Echo recently revealed that there were nearly 100 unfilled secondary teacher jobs in March this year in Cork, or 2.3% of the total number of jobs.