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MINISTER FOR EDUCATION Richard Bruton has today announced an expansion of the number of places on post primary teacher education courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
The move follows claims by a Fianna Fáíl TD Thomas Byrne that a real crisis exists in the teaching sector and that the demand for substitute teachers is vastly exceeding supply at both primary and second-level and that there is a major challenge for schools in finding teachers with the right subject mixes.
The numbers graduating from post primary teacher education courses have remained steady over the past number of years but the number of students entering the education system is increasing and will continue to do so until 2025, according to Bruton.
He said that universities will increase the capacity on undergraduate initial teacher education programmes by an estimated 280 places this year. This will include an increase in priority areas such as science, technology, engineering, maths, Irish and foreign languages.
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Announcing these new measures, Bruton said. “The quality of our teachers and school leaders is the number one factor which will influence the outcome for the child and we are very lucky in Ireland to have high quality teachers.
Some concerns have been raised recently around teacher supply issues. I have previously announced some measures to support schools in managing these issues, including expanding the number of days a teacher can work while on a career break. Today, I am taking further action by expanding the number of places on teacher education programmes with a heavy emphasis on certain subject areas at post primary level, to ensure that schools can get the right mix of subject teachers.
Fianna Fáíl’s education spokesperson Thomas Byrne said that teacher shortages will have serious ramifications in physics and Irish especially.
“Ongoing pay inequality has resulted in a recruitment and retention crisis for teachers and there are also major difficulties for schools in securing substitute teachers when required.”
Byrne’s stance is backed by Teachers Union of Ireland President Joanne Irwin, who said:
“All education stakeholders now acknowledge that there is an unprecedented crisis in the recruitment and retention of teachers. However, it is regrettable in the extreme, and foolish, that the government is still refusing to acknowledge or commit to the only guaranteed cure.
“Over recent months, there have been various suggestions of measures to attract teachers to particular subject areas, many of which would set a dangerous precedent of prioritising particular subjects based on the perceived and short-term needs of industry at a given moment in time. Most of these measures are no more than gimmicks and have not been fully thought out.”
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Mmmmh, where are all the pro swedish muppets now. Look at at Sweden, Sweden didn’t go into lock down, why should we.
There’s very few countries handled this right. And hindsight is a wonderful thing. Once it’s all over in 18 months or 2 years or so, then we can say who were the good children in class and who dropped the pooch.
@Karl Mc Cauley: Taiwan appear to have handled it pretty excellently. But of course they were kicked out of the UN in the 1970s…a motion Ireland voted in favour of, and by extension are not in WHO.
@Karl Mc Cauley: If you look at the deaths per capita between us and them there is not much in it……you are not factoring in the amount of deaths that will occurs after this this because of the economic fallout, which will be far far greater than the virus itself.
@Peter Hughes: Sweden will also suffer the economic fallout though. Their central bank predicts a contraction of their economy which falls within the range of most of the rest of Europe, between 6.5-9.7% It seems there have been only small economic benefits to the no lockdown model. Conversely the reduction of death has also been relatively small. Given this I’d take the small benefits to the protection of life.
@Peter Hughes: ‘not much in it’ is about 500 deaths as it stands. You post with crystal ball certainty that deaths from the economic fallout will far exceed this, so what is your ballpark estimate of this number? And how would you come to such an estimate?
@Peter Hughes: Stop comparing Ireland and Sweden! Different environment, genetics, population density, culture, health infrastructure etc. Far better to compare near neighbors to try and counteract all these factors. Eg Ireland v Scotland and Wales. Or Sweden v Denmark, Norway, Finland. Sweden has done much much worse than its Scandinavian neighbours. At the moment there is no disputing that. The major difference was the lockdown measures. But happy to hear of alternative explanations. Maybe long term it will look like the right call. E.g. They got the majority of their deaths out of the way in a condensed period of time. And the rest of us are just prolonging the inevitable. But we can only judge on data available today. And on that data it looks like they made poor decisions and ended up with multiples of deaths v their neighbours as a result
@NotMyIreland: Unemployment will be at 14 percent after the dust settles here, Sweden’s will be 9 percent.
GDP we will see its hard to tell but there will be a big difference.
@James F Davis: We have the youngest population in the EU so we done far far worse considering…..this virus kills the elderly in the vast majority or cases.
@Karl Mc Cauley:
Sweden >90% of COVID deaths are over 65.
Ireland >90% of COVID deaths are over 65.
Want to keep COVID numbers down: protect the elderly and vulnerable.
@Peter Hughes: I’m comparing with Europe as a whole. We all know from the last crash the Irish economy is more exposed to external shocks than many of our European neighbours so that is to be expected.
@Peter Hughes: Also even the most experienced economist have said they actually have no idea where economies will settle after this as its impossible to judge consumer demand and trends after a shock like this. If we were Sweden today our lockdown would have saved 34% extra deaths than we currently have. That’s real lives saved by today(570). Not hopeful economic savings in the future. As I said that’s why in my opinion I’d take the protection of life, with its clear advantages rather than the modest “predicted” economic savings.
@Peter Hughes: To be honest I don’t think we’re at a point for really reliable comparisons. It just surprises that over 500 deaths could be described as ‘not much in it’
@James F Davis: Do you realise how many additional people will die in a recession and if its a bad one well you can add way more on top I can tell you over years it will be multiples of what the virus kills, now come back to me and think about that before you post such comments. There is a big picture here and its about time people start looking at it.
@Peter Hughes: At this point in time I have no idea how the impending recession will look. I’ve never lived through a pandemic induced recession. And given the uncertainty among economists I think it’s fair to say that nobody really knows. That why it surprises me that you comment with such certainty on the topic. And if you are so sure then you must be making some kind of an estimate of the death toll. I asked you above what this estimate is and how you arrived at it?
@Joe Vlogs: what has that got to do with anything we are talking about at the minute.
If u want to discuss chinese politics with me grand we will in a different forum.
There was no user manual for this, no previous experience of anything on its scale to learn from and no real plans anywhere to cope with an event like it. EVERY government made mistakes and most will make more mistakes, but I doubt that any government set out to increase the risk to its people. The hope is that we will all learn and be prepared in the event that something like this happens again.
@Stephen Byrne: all they had to do was look at Hong Kong. 4 deaths in total…
I posted three months back that Ireland was not prepared and should reach out to the HK consulate…
Question is will us and their Nordic neighbours eventually see the same numbers? As has always been told to us we are simply slowing the spread. If what Ireland has done has helped our older and vunerable population avoid this for a while longer than this is positive, but failed catastrophically with the nursing and residential care homes.
@Sharp Elsi Mate: That’s a good question. I think what the lockdowns have done is give a clearer picture of the at risk categories whilst keeping the death toll down. Except of course with the residential settings which were badly managed. With the knowledge we have now it should help to minimise the death toll going forward.
@Sharp Elsi Mate: Very good point, we must also add the future unnecessary deaths that will come from not testing for cervical smears and breast checks etc.
Unfortunately we may also see an increase in suicides similar to the 2008 crash.
We have hidden from the virus, they faced it. We have little immunity they have much more.
Only an antibody test for everyone in the audience will tell the real story.
Where are 80 k deaths forecast by the famous imperial collage model by June 1st in Sweden? this had us build field hostipals and take over the private sector healthcare for the surge that never came here, nor did it in Sweden they have a marginally higher death rate per million. The difference is the GDP in Sweden is expected to have a one third contraction compared to ours. Just wait for the public sector cuts and the austerity and then let’s see who was right.
@Ruairi O Gorman: I don’t know where ‘here’ is to you, but Ireland has been through a surge of infection, illness, and deaths. Maybe not enough people died to suit your preference?
@Ruairi O Gorman: For those who insist on forcing this comparison the difference is almost 32%. Whatever way this plays out, I wouldn’t call that marginal.
You mentioned recently that there was strong evidence that the virus has already passed through the population. What’s the strong evidence?
@Ruairi O Gorman: 20/20 hindsight is a great thing. When this kicked off no-one knew how it would pan out, so many countries were over-cautious in their preparation, ourselves included in *some* areas. It’s easier to say now what was too much and what wasn’t enough.
@Ruairi O Gorman: How can you say that 570 people dying is a marginal figure especially as Sweden are still recording an excessive amount of new cases and deaths per day? Today they had 2214 new cases and 74 new deaths. Give it another month and then see if you still think their death rate is marginally greater than ours.
@Steve: another month and Sweden have close to full immunity and approx 5500-6000 deaths, we have no clear path and could be importing clusters for a yr or more
@dowthebow: They won’t have full immunity in a month or two, less than 9% of the population currently have antibodies in Sweden. Their herd immunity strategy is not working. The way their death rate is going they will have 10k deaths by the end of the summer and nowhere near herd immunity.
@Crispy Brown: or perhaps the Americans who were funding the Coronavirus research in the lab in Wuhan, because they couldn’t do it on US soil. O the tangled webs they weave…
@european liberal: no we dont u muppet.. Sweden has tested 27,000 per million, we tested 70,000 per million. More tests, more positive results. Also Stockholms major was interviewed on bbc news, clip available on bbc web site., saying he recons that total cases is 4 times higher than reported total. So stop talking out of your $#@.
@european liberal: Sweden has the highest death rate per capita in the world (for countries with a population >500,000). They had 4500 deaths, if we had the same population as Sweden, we would have had over 8500 deaths.
@european liberal: We have fewer deaths per million population than Sweden. That is what the lockdown does in spreading the curve. The outcome is that while you might have the same numbers ultimately becoming sick, there will be fewer deaths as there is easier access to health resources
@David Jordan: Incorrect! Belgium 822; Spain 580, UK 580; Italy 555 followed by Sweden on 450 who are followed by France on 443; Holland 349 and Ireland 336. This makes Belgium the highest, Sweden fifth and Ireland eighth – which is where we have been for quite some time now.
@Karl Mc Cauley: It depends on how you measure failure. They probably didn’t cancel outpatient clinics, they probably won’t have high unemployment or austerity. And like someone mentioned earlier, over a longer period of time, who’s to say the death rate won’t be the same or less than other countries, it just happened to them quicker.
@Crispy Brown:
Given their behaviour in Hong Kong lately, as well as abominable action against the Uighurs and much more besides, I wouldn’t hold my breath
@Gordon Comstock: Sweden has a “soft lockdown”, bars, restaurants, retail shops and primary schools are still open. They limited the size of gathering to no more then 50 (reduced from 500). They recommended people not to travel between regions, most people work from home. But it is no where as strict as here and life is pretty much normal.
Seems to me your lockdown kings are not reading the article, what it says is in sweeden some are wondering if they could have done better, not that they wished they had shut down the economy, we all should ask could we do better, especially here. Norway for instance thinks they should have been more like sweeden:
ht tps://w ww.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/30/coronavirus-norway-wonders-should-have-like-sweden/amp/
Sweden has had 438 deaths
Ireland 341 per million, not that much worse than us,
ht tps://w ww.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
and they wont have 30billion in debt to pass on to the next generation. Ask lockdown lovers, what has this pandemic cost you?, or are you on a Gov’t cheque or big business support.
@Henry Thompson: lockdown kings guided by the scientific method which overrules everything including witchcraft ,faith ,ballsology with oils etc
While Sweden scoffed at others drinking in pubs and lauding their attitude ,we cleverly abided by best scientific practice and did as well as we possibly could to date despite the tragic deaths .
Sweden has not tested the public and keep their numbers down by this affect.
Thankfully, I don’t live there anymore and I much appreciate Ireland’s approach. I know many Swedes and others living there having had the virus and been refused testing. Only told to behave morally .
Then told if they show no symptoms for a couple of days they can return to work.
It is scary and a disgrace in my opinion.
I worked in Denmark twice.
The Danes and Norwegians are great buddies, even speak the same language with different dialects, Share a common Viking History.
Stood up to Nazi Germany on WW2, but they detest the Swedes, always told me the Swedes are basically up their own Arses, they are them as uncaring and aloof.
Their approach to Covid 19 see.s to back up their analysis of Swedes , Eugenics style, as opposed to Kommune style of Norway and Denmark.
There is one hugely important and disastrous mistake this ‘chief’ is omitting to tell International media: The essential outbreak in Europe (late Feb-early March) coincided with Swedish schools going on Mid-term Winter sports break, which is when 10′s of thousands of Swedes go skiing in the Alps, e.g. northern Italy and Austria – Europe’s worst Corona affected areas at that time.
The one-week break is staggered in three phases across the country’s regions, from the south to the north, and even though Italy’s plight was World news by the time Central Sweden went on their break, the authorities did NOTHING to stop them (or those in the North who had yet to go on their break) from traveling to those heavily infected areas, or quarantining -or even testing- those returning!!
This is the sloppy-ass root cause of the high numbers of infected, and dead, in Sweden!!
Stating facts on this site comes up as toxic as adjudged by some ridiculous algorithm.
The Swedes currently have the highest daily death rate of all the western countries. They have failed are still failing. They have had over 4 months to put their house in order. The general consensus in Sweden for the very high death rate (currently 5th in the world, and rising faster than all) is that it is caused by their foreign immigrants and not by Swedes themselves, their slack response or their disregard for vulnerable people and the elderly. It’s not just the government either, the general population is complicit.
Don’t give me that about waiting a couple of years to see how everyone does. The Swedes have undertaken a policy of ‘kill them all now’ and are not ashamed of it. Infact they seem pretty proud of it.
Let’s not get carried away with the , “one life is one too many “crap . We all die .this virus kills the old and infirm. The numbers out of Sweden are , in my opinion, very reasonable. They have 4.5 k v our 1.7 k . Pro rata with the population an extra 1 k costing us €20 billion. That’s a poor return.
What they’re saying in Sweden is , not that their system is wrong, but , that more could have been done to protect the vulnerable.
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