Government urged to make teaching more attractive
The Teachers' Union of Ireland is calling for urgent government intervention to address teacher retention and excessive administrative workloads. Union leaders argue that bureaucratic demands are causing burnout and distracting educators from their primary role of teaching.
Why it matters
Teacher retention crises threaten the stability of the education system and the quality of student learning outcomes.
The Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) has said that the retention of teachers within the system is now "as big a challenge as initial recruitment".
It also said that teachers are being deflected from teaching by ever-increasing administrative duties.
The union is pressing the Department of Education to introduce effective measures to retain those teachers who have recently entered the education system.
TUI president Anthony Quinn said: "Teachers want to teach, yet it is abundantly clear that they are being distracted from teaching and learning by increasing administrative workload.
"In a survey of our members earlier this year, 92% agreed that bureaucratic workload/paperwork that distracts from teaching has increased since they commenced their career.
"Separately, 92% agreed that 'initiative overload’ is leading to burnout among teachers and principal teachers.
"Put simply, teachers have to spend too much time on non-teaching workload generated by constant new programme, policy and administrative demands.
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