Across schools this week it has felt like a return to the darker days of the pandemic: thousands of pupils absent, classes at risk of being sent home and anxiety over whether we could see a return to remote teaching.
The reason this time is not so much Covid cases in schools, but a crisis in the supply of substitute cover. The tightening of close contact rules, which has forced more teachers to restrict their movements, has made the problem even more acute. Many schools are struggling to keep classes open due to high rates of sick leave or teachers being forced to self-isolate.
Principals have been forced to plead for staff over social media, while student teachers, retired teachers and special-education staff have been propping up the system. Keeping schools and classes open, for many institutions, is a day-to-day business. This is hardly a sustainable way to run an education system.
The teacher supply problem is not new. In fact, it is seven years since an interim report on the issue was produced for the Department of Education which highlighted the need to build a better system to determine the supply and demand for teachers. A steering group set up within the department has worked to provide extra places in teacher education courses, faster qualification routes, relax restrictions for retired teachers and those on career breaks and establish supply panels of teachers. It has helped, but underlying obstacles remain. Postgraduate teacher education is too expensive for many and two-tier payscales for newly qualified staff appear to be another disincentive.
Apart from the threat to the continued operation of schools, there are very real concerns over the impact on teaching and learning. At second level, many schools say they have had no applications for advertised posts in key subjects this year. As a result, students are being taught by “out of field” teachers who are not qualified to deliver the subjects they are teaching. This is not good enough for a country which, until recently, aspired to making Ireland’s the “best education system in Europe” by 2026.
Primary schools, in particular, need all the support they can get. The effective removal of public health’s role from schools following a relaxation in testing and tracing rules has added to a sense that they are being left to deal with the pandemic on their own.
The biggest challenge over the coming days and weeks will be to keep classes open and avoid school closures. Minister for Education Norma Foley, who downplayed the scale of the crisis earlier this month, must ensure that every possible emergency measure is explored. We saw the damage caused by school closures earlier in the pandemic. We cannot allow it to happen again.