Permanent teaching post attracts almost 400 applications

A TEACHING job which attracted almost 400 applications is one of hundreds attracting the same level of interest around the country, according to the principal who had to sift through applications before filling the post last month. The permanent job at St Joseph's National School in Fermoy, Co Cork, became vacant when one of the staff retired. But principal Anne Fay only realised the crisis facing newly-qualified teachers when the parcels of CVs started to arrive at the school from the local postal sorting office.

"We got 399 applications in a few weeks, I'd say most of them were from people who had just graduated or with up to three years' experience. Many were people who had left other careers to train as a teacher based on the idea from the Government that there was guaranteed work in primary schools," she said.

The board of management appointment committee spent 10 hours going through the applications, including some from as far away as Sligo, and filled the position just before the school re-opened last month.

"I thought we got a lot of CVs, but other principals have told me they received 800 and even 1,200 applications for jobs over the summer. Something that also needs to be addressed is the cost for people sending CVs to dozens of schools in the hope of getting work," said Ms Fay, who is a member of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) national executive.

The 4,000 extra primary teacher jobs promised by Fianna Fáil before the 2007 election were scuppered by a freeze on pupil teacher ratios in 2008 and the decision a year ago to increase the number of pupils each school needs to appoint each teacher from 27 to 28 for this school year. About 2,000 people are qualifying as primary teachers this year, including hundreds who paid several thousand euro for postgraduate teacher training courses.

A series of INTO regional meetings for teachers who are unemployed or working in non-permanent and substitute positions is to begin next week in Galway, Cork and Limerick

The biggest impact of the cuts – which Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe insists will mean only 400 fewer primary teachers in schools this year – has been increases in class size this autumn for tens of thousands of pupils in 3,300 primary schools. A Dublin principal told the Irish Examiner in July he got 1,200 applications for a temporary job to cover a career break.

Mr O'Keeffe has also said 1,700 people were working in primary schools without suitable qualifications last year, and 2,000 unqualified people were teaching in second level schools, despite Department of Education rules that only qualified teachers should be employed, except in very limited circumstances.