Government not taking teacher retention crisis seriously, says ASTI

The teacher recruitment and retention crisis in schools continues and remains unabated due to ineffective government action.

In recent years, the ASTI has been tracking the number of unfilled post-primary teaching posts advertised on the education recruitment website educationposts.ie. Mid-August each year it remains consistent that hundreds of teaching posts remain unfilled, roughly a week before second-level schools are due to re-open and despite schools having worked relentlessly to try and put a full complement of teaching staff in place for their students.

In a RedC/ ASTI survey of school leaders undertaken in spring 2025 (published today August 14^th 2025), 67% of respondents said they had unfilled vacancies due to recruitment difficulties.

This is further evidence that the minimalist actions taken in recent years, which have included upskilling existing teachers, extra training places for teachers in our colleges of education, changes to student teacher placement arrangements, and changes to the substitution arrangements applicable to teachers on leave schemes and retired teachers, have failed to reverse the chronic teacher shortage crisis in Ireland.

Kieran Christie, ASTI General Secretary, said “the changes necessary to fundamentally address the problem and ensure teaching is a sustainable career have not been acted upon. It seems the Department of Education and Youth is waiting for demographic shifts to lessen the problem. This is not an acceptable way to treat the children and young people who are returning to school this month.”

“The extent of the recruitment and retention crisis in our schools demonstrated in the RedC survey conducted on behalf of ASTI last spring is shocking.”

The RedC survey found that:

• 77% of second-level schools had no applications for an advertised post or posts during the 2024/25 school year;
• 90% of schools said there were no substitute teachers available to cover for absent teachers;
• 73% said they had to employ non-qualified/ casual teachers to manage teacher supply issues;
• In addition to employing non-qualified teachers, schools had to resort to reassigning Special Education Needs teachers to mainstream classes, adversely impacting the most vulnerable in school communities; and
• 42% of schools removed a subject or subjects from the curriculum.

Successive education ministers, including the current Minister for Education and Youth Helen McEntee T.D., have been unwilling to make the changes necessary to fundamentally address the problem, according to ASTI General Secretary Kieran Christie.

“Fundamental changes to entice teachers to return from other countries need to be introduced,” said Mr Christie.

“Shortening the excessively long teachers’ pay scale and doubling the number of middle management posts in schools would be an enormous help in properly addressing the teacher supply crisis.

“The training period for new teachers needs to be reduced from two-years to one and the exorbitant cost of undertaking this training must be tackled.

“The United Nations High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession reported on the ongoing and worsening crisis in teaching globally and recommended that governments ensure equitable funding for education and sustainable investment in the teaching profession. The Government needs to immediately take the serious steps necessary to address these matters. Teaching in Ireland needs to be made more attractive. The enormous price being paid by children who are consistently in classrooms with no qualified teacher available to teach them will leave a long and bitter legacy.”