An Irish Government spending review has found there are about 125 different types of leave which can be used by teachers, while the cost of providing substitute staff is now about €250 million ($A401.7 million) per year.
In its report, the Department of Public Expenditure said that in the case of 95 of those types of leave arrangements, substitute staff could be employed by the school to cover either long or short-term absence.
In the 2019-20 academic year roughly 1.6 million absence days were recorded.
The Department said total expenditure on teacher substitution had been growing “quite steadily”, at roughly 10 per cent per year, with about 92 per cent of expenditure attributable to teachers and special needs assistants accounting for a small proportion.
The spending review, which was commissioned in part to identify the drivers behind the increasing expenditure, pointed to growing teacher numbers; changes in policy which provided additional leave arrangements; the demographics of the teaching profession; and new professional learning requirements.
It said the number of teachers at primary and post-primary level combined had increased from about 60,000 in 2014-15 to about 70,000 in 2019-20, largely due to growing pupil enrolment.
The Department said there had also been multiple changes to statutory leave in recent years, most notably the introduction of paternity leave, the extension of parental leave and the introduction of the Public Service sick-leave scheme.
It said these policy changes had also resulted in more absence days.
It maintained the demographics of the teacher population “where there is currently a large number of young female teachers, particularly at primary level” was contributing to increased substitution demand as this was an age where family-related leave was common — maternity leave, parental leave and so on.
Teacher professional learning arrangements also resulted in absence days to deal with issues such as curriculum and assessment reform and continuing professional development, the review said.
Dublin, 2 August 2021
