Political parties’ manifestos lack ambition to tackle teacher supply crisis – The Irish Times

The manifestos of political parties are remarkable documents. Ostensibly, they aim to give citizens choices and a way to make comparisons between the offerings of different political parties. The reality is that they vary considerably in the information they provide, and are often a measure of a party’s available resources and sometimes their expertise. Some provide details on the costs of their proposals, others do not. Very often the figures quoted will be disputed. Despite their shortcomings, they provide a reasonable picture of the thinking within political parties on various topics and are useful to that extent.

It is not the intention of this article to provide a comprehensive overview of the various party documents (particularly those of the larger parties). Instead, we provide an analysis of the positions different groups take on two of the most pressing issues affecting the education system: teacher supply and educational disadvantage.

Both are complex and persistent issues that have been affecting the education system for some time and both have been identified by international bodies, including the OECD and the EU, as requiring urgent attention. These two issues intersect because schools in underserved areas are most impacted during a teacher shortage.

Teacher offer

A topic we have written about by length about the past five years, including in these columnsThere has been a growing teacher supply crisis for twelve years, affecting both primary and post-primary schools.

Moreover, there has been a long-standing problem at post-primary level, where school principals are forced to appoint teachers outside the subject area to teach certain subjects. Out-of-field teaching is the practice of assigning teachers to positions for which they do not have the appropriate qualifications.

This practice was identified as a “constraint on genuine professionalism” in an OECD review of Irish education published in 1991, and recognized as a problem in the 1992 Green Paper, Education for a changing world: “While teachers should ideally only teach their GCSE subjects, it is not considered feasible to introduce such a requirement at this stage.”

Unfortunately, more than thirty years later, off-field teaching is still a widespread problem, exacerbated in recent years by the supply crisis.

The issue of teacher supply receives rather limited attention in the various party manifestos, and in some even none at all. Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats are all committing to measures to encourage those teaching abroad to return. Suggestions on how this should be achieved vary, but there are references to recognition of services abroad and salary calculations.

Aontú provides more details about its proposals under this heading, promising to provide a subsidy to those who return, along with a tax break. Sinn Féin is also pledging that full-time permanent posts will become available more quickly, a strategy that would certainly help but is unlikely to have a transformative impact. Fianna Fáil (FF) is promising to come up with a system where Stem teachers can be shared across schools. Similar initiatives have been tried in the past, but with limited success due to the complexity of school schedules.

In summary, these proposals, although useful, are not sufficiently ambitious to solve the crisis.

Labor is proposing to establish a teacher workforce taskforce to consider the issue and then act on its recommendations. Clearly this will not have an immediate impact and the experiences of the Teacher Supply Steering Group over the past seven years provide little reason for optimism. However, if a truly independent expert group were to be established and its recommendations implemented, this could prove to be an important development.

Educational disadvantage

The government’s policy response to the issue of educational disadvantage is to adopt a policy of positive discrimination, allocating additional resources to schools that target students, or indeed large numbers of students, with low socio-economic status.

This response is reflected in the Deis program, which was launched in 2005. Since its inception, the program has operated based on degrees of educational disadvantage at the primary level: band one (most deprived), band two and rural Deis.

Only one grade is awarded at post-primary level. While no one would expect the Department of Education to design a bespoke model to suit every school, the argument has been repeatedly made that a more comprehensive range of grades is needed. In particular, the idea that all post-primary schools in deprived areas experience the same degree of disadvantage does not withstand serious scrutiny.

In 2006, School Affairs: The Report of the Task Force on Student Behavior in Second Level Schools (the Martin Report) was published. Among many illuminating observations, the report noted: “The accumulated evidence before us, substantiated in a vast body of literature, is that there are significant numbers of students in our schools with mental health problems that may not be school-related in their origin.”

If that was true then, it is even more true now.

The Martin Report recommended the establishment of multi-disciplinary support teams to work with schools on behavioral and wellbeing issues. Apart from a small pilot project, this suggestion was subsequently largely ignored. Yet the reality is that schools serving the most underserved areas are attempting to provide support to students and families far beyond the scope of expertise and resources available to them. In recent years, the term “Deis+” has been used to argue for the provision of additional resources necessary to compensate for the shortcomings of the Deis scheme.

Those advocating for improvements to Deis know firsthand what is needed. Many have pointed out the strengths of the model currently being offered as part of the North East Inner City Initiative. When it comes to reading the manifestos of the various political parties, their position on educational disadvantage is not as clear as you might expect.

Six parties (FF, FG, Sinn Féin, Labour, Social Democrats and People Before Profit-Solidarity) are committed to introducing a Deis+ model, with little or no explanation of what they mean by Deis+. Relevant questions not addressed include: what additional services will be provided to how many schools?; does this apply at both primary and post-primary levels?; how are the participating schools determined?; What percentage increase, if any, would be applied to the modest Deis budget as it currently exists?

Many would argue that an independent evaluation of the Deis program is long overdue, but there appears to be little appetite for such an initiative. It is as if Deis+ has become a convenient alternative to the detailed, independent thinking on the part of the political parties and is to some extent used as a slogan.

Equality in education

At the time of writing, it seems almost certain that the government program emerging from this electoral process will be negotiated between one or two of the three main parties, in consultation with some of the smaller groups. In the run-up to the elections, the positions of the various political parties on two of the most pressing issues affecting the education system provide little reason for optimism.

Regarding the teacher shortage, while some useful initiatives have been proposed, there is little sign that the problem will be tackled in a fundamental and comprehensive way. It seems that the political and administrative class is happy to tinker around the edges until changing demographics ‘solve’ the problem.

There may be some reason for very cautious optimism regarding the educational gap, but as mentioned, the commitments are not detailed. Much will depend on the negotiations that take place, the subsequent choice of the Minister for Education, whether the next Taoiseach will take the necessary steps to ensure a multi-departmental approach, and whether equality in our education provision becomes a real priority for the government.

Dr. Brian Fleming and Prof. Judith Harford are academics at UCD’s School of Education