93% of Irish secondary schools have experienced recruitment and retention issues in the past six months, according to a new survey.

The Teachers Union of Ireland's Principals and Deputies Association surveyed 111 schools to analyse the extent of the ongoing teacher recruitment crisis.

On Newstalk Breakfast, TUI President David Waters said the findings were "unfortunately" what the union had expected.

"75% of schools in the survey said they had advertised posts and received no applications," Mr Waters said.

"93% of schools have experienced recruitment and retention issues over the past 6 months.

"Only 3% of principals think the Government is doing enough to alleviate the problem, which is probably the most damning statistic."

Students taking an exam, Alamy

The TUI is calling on the Government to enact a number of changes to address the recruitment and retention issues.

"The first thing they should be doing is giving incremental credit to teachers working abroad in places like Dubai," Mr Waters said.

"If we want them to return, they can't be impoverished on that return.

"We have a huge cohort of teachers who have trained in Ireland, know the Irish system and are working abroad because they are granted unrealistic terms and conditions that we can never offer."

Mr Waters said eliminating career breaks would "make little to no difference in the recruitment and retention crisis".

Training

The TUI is also calling on the Government to reduce the Professional Master of Education from two years to one, as the current situation is "unaffordable" for students.

"If we halve that back to one year, we automatically release 1,400 teachers into the system," Mr Waters said.

"From our survey, 79% of schools have been forced to use second year PME students anyway to plug the gaps.

"At least if they were full-time in the school, we could have them solidly as teachers there."

Additionally, the TUI is asking the Government to increase the number of full-time positions for secondary school teachers in order to make the profession "liveable".

Featured image shows a teacher and students in a classroom, Alamy.