BY MARK McKELVEY
m.mckelvey@ulsterherald.com
A SERIOUS crisis has developed in the teaching profession that needs to be addressed immediately in order to provide our young teachers with jobs
There is approximately 6000 unemployed young teachers in the North according to local education observer Cllr Pat McDonnell.
The SDLP Cllr who is a retired teacher himself, feels there are too many qualified teachers coming through the system at present which is causing a crisis situation within the profession and needs to be addressed now.
"I am seriously concerned about the number of unemployed young teachers," said Cllr McDonnell. "There is a real crisis concerning the availability of jobs for them.
"We need to cut down the numbers going into the teaching profession for a while to try and bring about some stability otherwise most of our young teachers face the prospect of no chance of a job at home."
Cllr McDonnell stressed his belief that the Scottish system should be implemented here to give our young teachers experience and hope.
He said, "I am strongly demanding we learn from the Scottish system that guarantees a newly qualified teacher a year's employment straight away. That is something that we must bring in here. I am going to write to the Minister for Education to make that point.
"If a teacher is guaranteed a year's employment means that they have gained experience they need so are ticking the box for future applications for jobs. Otherwise they are caught in a catch 22 situation where, you can't get the post without the experience and you can't get the experience without the post.
Cllr McDonnell expressed that the problem is right across the board, affecting all teachers no matter what age group or subject they teach.
"There is a massive number of unemployed teachers," said Cllr McDonnell.
"It is already at catastrophic proportions and something needs to be done to address this. There was a recent estimate that the number of unemployed teachers across the six counties is in the region of 6000, which is a very serious figure. They could get work in England, but we thought the day's of forced economic emigration were in the past."
