Substitute Teachers' Survey - Results
- Published: 29 May 2015
- Half of the principals had failed to find a substitute teacher between 1 and 3 times since January 2015
- More than a quarter had no difficulty
- The remainder had failed to find a sub more than 3 times
- Half of respondents consider the situation to be worsening with only 6% saying it’s improving – mainly in Mayo!
- In general, there is good availability of substitute teachers in the first term, scarce availability in the second term and very scarce availability in the third term
- Schools are availing of a range of methods to find substitute teachers. A third use TextaSub, 81% use a written list and three quarters phone personal contacts – i.e. schools are using several methods at the same time as no one method is certain. The Subsearch tool and county-based lists are used by quite a few schools. A number of others maintain a list of substitute teachers on their TextaParent system
- Special Schools, Gaelscoileanna and Island Schools reported particular difficulty finding suitable teachers, especially where it is not pre-planned
- A number also cited the requirement for Garda vetting as a specific challenge.
IPPN will share these findings with the Teaching Council and the DES with a view to determining possible mitigation actions.
