DUBLIN: FOUR OUT OF FIVE SECONDARY SCHOOLS HAVE ISSUES WITH HIRING AND RETAINING TEACHERS

Almost four out of five second level schools have had no applications to teaching posts they advertised over the last six months, according to the Teachers' Union of Ireland.

A survey of more than 130 schools carried out by the union found that virtually all of the schools that responded - 97% - have experienced difficulties recruiting teachers, and almost half complained of difficulties retaining teachers. 

77% said they had advertised positions in the previous six months for which no teacher had applied.

SMITHFIELD SQUARE DUBLIN 7

More than half of schools that participated said they had unfilled vacancies due to recruitment and retention difficulties.

The findings have been published in advance of a one day strike next Tuesday that TUI members will engage in.

The strike is aimed at highlighting the union's concern at an ongoing disparity in pay for teachers employed after January 2011 and hundreds of post-primary schools are expected to close as a result of the action. 

Schools run by Education and Training Boards, where the majority of teachers belong to the TUI, will be forced to close.

But many other schools with teachers belonging to either the TUI or the ASTI are also likely to remain shut for the day. This is because ASTI teachers - who are not participating directly in the strike - will not do work normally done by their TUI colleagues on the day. 

The one- day strike will also affect adult and further education centres, and Institutes of Technology and Technological University Dublin.

The union said the failure to end pay discrimination is the single greatest cause of the ongoing teacher supply crisis that its survey highlights. 

TUI President Seamus Lahart said the findings made clear "the severe damage that the injustice of the two-tier pay system is doing to the education system and the service to students".

The union said it is alarming but predictable that the situation has worsened since the same survey was last carried out in April 2019.

It described as "damning" the fact that almost four out of every five schools advertised positions to which no teacher applied, while over half of schools have unfilled vacancies due to recruitment and retention difficulties.

It said the level of the crisis was unprecedented. 

In a statement the union said there was no doubt that teacher recruitment and retention problems were inflicting severe damage, with students often missing out on subject choices or being taught by "out-of-field" teachers.

The survey found that the ongoing teacher shortage is most severe in subjects such as Home Economics, French, and Math.

Other subjects affected include Spanish, Biology, Physics, and Chemistry. 

According to the union the largest pay discrimination still occurs in the early years of employment, with new entrants to second level teaching earning 14% less on initial appointment and 10% less in the first ten years than they would have before the imposition of a two-tier pay system. 

It says that within the first ten years of their career, those teachers earn over €50,000 less than a teacher appointed pre-2011. Over a 40-year career, they earn around €110,000 less.

The union has called for a commitment to an immediate ending of pay discrimination to be contained in any new programme for government. 

ADDITIONAL TEXT:

A Muslim named Anver Sheikh had a conviction quashed. He had been convicted of a serious sexual crime against two boys. From 1979 to 1980, Anver Sheikh, a former soldier, had worked in a North Yorkshire care home. Twenty years later.

Police knocked on his door, charges and conviction followed, and he spent 20 months in prison. His case was taken up by the Historical Abuse Appeal Panel, a newly formed group of legal people (in the UK), who share expertise on these kinds of cases.

Very rapidly, they were able to establish that he had not been working in the care home at the time that the claimant alleged an- the assault had taken place. Why had Anver Sheikh not been able to point that out at his original trial.

Well, how would you like to give a detailed account of what you did on 08/02/1984?  For Anver Sheikh, the time he worked in the home was part of a distant past, and of no significance.

The appeal team were also able to establish evidence that indicated heavily that the second claimant had absconded from the institution at the time he claimed he had been abused. Given the evidence, one may ask how careful the police investigation was.

Anver Sheikh is not the first to his conviction overturned. Over 100 cases involving carers and teachers accused of sexual abuse are up for review in Britain.

People become willing to believe any tale of depravity, so a person like Anver Sheikh, with no previous convictions or any complaints from the other institutions where he worked, it was still easy to convict him. The parallels with Ireland are obvious.

According to the support group Falsely- Accused Carers and Teachers (FACT) in 2000 there was a 90% conviction rate for alleged child sex abuse, as compared to just 9% for cases of adult rape. The prevalence of false allegations and the publicity given to them is driving experienced staff out of teaching, and presumably, deterring others from seeking to enter it.

In the words of a primary school teacher from Kent: “The increasing occurrences of allegations is one reason why I will be leaving the profession sooner than I would like to”. ENDS: