Background
In recent years, teacher shortages in Ireland’s public education system have worsened. Various factors may be contributing to the shortages. Despite efforts to address the issue, teacher shortages persist, and there is still no clear consensus among Irish educational stakeholders regarding their causes or the most effective solutions.
The project ‘Strategic Workforce Planning for Teachers in Ireland’ aims to fill in this gap. It began in August 2024 and will be implemented for two years until August 2026. It is implemented by UNESCO, in cooperation with the Department of Education and Youth and the European Commission and it is funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument. It aims to achieve the following outcomes:
a) Enhanced consensus among relevant stakeholders regarding challenges to the teaching profession and measures to improve the teacher workforce planning in Ireland;
b) The results of the project will be used by the Department of Education and Youth to develop a strategy on the improvement of teacher workforce planning.
In the long-term and in combination with other related efforts, the project intends to contribute to even further enhancing the status and attractiveness of the teaching profession and reducing teacher shortages in Ireland.
As part of the ongoing project activities, a diagnostic review was conducted to examine the main factors contributing to teacher shortages in Ireland. It explored multiple interrelated causes and provided an in-depth analysis across different school types. Building on this analysis, the project undertook a review of EU and international best practices to identify effective policy responses to teacher shortages. This phase presented case studies of countries facing similar challenges, analysing the measures they introduced, and the outcomes achieved. Following this, a peer learning workshop was carried out, during which Irish stakeholders – including government departments, teacher education institutions, school management bodies, and teacher unions – examined the international examples and discussed their relevance to the Irish context.
These steps have culminated in a set of evidence-based policy recommendations to improve the recruitment, deployment, retention, and professional development of teachers in Ireland.
Building on the previous phases, the next stage of the project focuses on translating the agreed recommendations into a feasible, clear, and actionable costed implementation roadmap. The roadmap will serve as a practical tool for the Department of Education and Youth to move from analysis to implementation by setting out clear actions, responsibilities, timelines, indicative costs, and monitoring mechanisms. It will also identify potential funding sources and outline governance mechanisms.