New teachers to receive €2,000 incentive to stay year in Irish classrooms

Newly qualified teachers will be entitled to a €2,000 incentive payment next summer if they take up a full-time teaching role for the coming school year as part of a fresh effort to boost the supply of classroom professionals.

Primary and secondary schools say they have been struggling to find qualified teachers for a variety of reasons including the cost of accommodation in urban areas, as well as teachers taking up posts abroad or other roles in the private sector.

The incentive scheme, details of which are due to be announced shortly, will apply to an estimated 2,000 teachers who have completed their professional master’s of education (PME) this year and take up a full-time teaching role during the 2024/25 school year.

They will have to wait until the end of the academic year in 2025 before receiving the payment.

The cost of the PME – about €15,000 – and duration of the two-year qualification have also been cited as “push factors” turning some graduates away from teaching.

“This initiative reflects the Government’s commitment to ongoing investment in the education system, and is one of a number of initiatives introduced to assist in the recruitment of teachers,” a Department of Education spokesman said.

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“Although the vast majority of sanctioned teacher positions are filled, and the rate of resignation and retirements is low by any standard, the department continues to engage closely with education stakeholders to develop further, innovative measures to address teacher-supply issues.”

The move has been broadly welcomed by the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) which, it says, may help newly qualified teachers opt to stay at home.

“This was among our demands of the Minister to assist with teacher supply in the primary sector,” said INTO general secretary John Boyle.

“We have been applying pressure to the department to ensure that the arrangements for this measure are published before the end of June to give clarity to newly qualified teachers applying for jobs in Ireland and to try to convince them to stay in the country.”

Mr Boyle said the union remained “deeply concerned” about teacher supply and intended to amplify its campaign to provide a “fully qualified teacher for every pupil every day”.

Despite a record 121,000 teachers registered with the Teaching Council, schools reported an “unprecedented” number of vacant posts during the 2023/24 academic year.

A survey of more than 1,000 schools late last year by school management bodies found there were more than 800 vacant teaching posts across primary classes.

As a result, primary schools said they were being forced to plug staffing gaps by redeploying special education teachers to cover for absent teachers in mainstream classes, leaving vulnerable pupils without support.

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At second level, teachers’ unions and principals said many schools were forced to drop or limit access to key subjects due to staff shortages.

A Teachers’ Union of Ireland survey late last year found that maths was the most difficult subject to find qualified teachers for, followed by woodwork/construction studies, Irish, biology, home economics and chemistry.

The Department of Education, however, said the vast majority of sanctioned teacher positions are filled and the rate of resignation and retirements is “low by any standard”.

Nonetheless, it said it will continue to engage closely with education stakeholders to develop “further, innovative measures to address teacher supply issues”.

Under the new scheme, applicants will be asked to complete an application for the incentive payment, which will be paid at the end of the coming school year.

The incentive payment – to be subject to tax – will be made to each applicant who satisfies the eligibility criteria in 2025.

The department said the scheme is intended to operate only for the 2024/25 school year.

In 2022, more than 3,800 teachers graduated from all initial teacher education programmes. However, only 58 per cent of these completed so-called PME programmes. As a result, it is expected that between 1,700, and 2,000 teachers will benefit from this incentive.