Three-quarters of schools did not receive a single application when they advertised a job vacancy this year, a survey carried out by ASTI/Red C has found.
The research also found 81% of schools are employing at least one unqualified teacher.
The new President of the ASTI teaching union said schools' difficulty recruiting staff was down to not enough people wanting to join the profession.
“The difficulty is the attractiveness of the teaching profession - and while it’s not a recent problem, it has been there for a number of years - but it’s now worse than ever,” Geraldine O'Brien said.
“The housing difficulties, the cost of living, teachers’ workload and the fact that schools are starved of essential resources.”
Ms O'Brien said there were a number of policies the Government could implement if they want to enhance the status of the profession.
“Pay teachers more, firstly,” she said.
“Secondly, there could be a reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio.
“Thirdly, they need to collaborate effectively with teachers in relation to change; teachers know best what will work and what will not work in the classroom.”
Housing
In recent years, numerous schools have complained that they are struggling to recruit staff because of the housing crisis.
It is an issue that schools in the capital say is particularly acute.
“There are an awful lot of young teachers who finish college and they can’t afford to live in Dublin,” Principal Clodagh Farrell told Newstalk.
“They can’t get accommodation so they move back down home or they’ll move outside Dublin and they’ll look for work there.
“I suppose that’s why Dublin and the bigger cities are being particularly hit by this.
“And I guess there are a lot of teachers who are choosing to go abroad for accommodation reasons.”
To mitigate the crisis, the Labour Party has backed the introduction of a Dublin weighting in which the capital's public sector workers in the capital would be paid more to offset the higher cost of working in the city.
Main image: A teacher on the Aran Islands. Picture by: Alamy.com
