Catholic schools in Australia hope to tempt Irish teachers with salaries of up to €72,000
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In the middle of a school staffing crisis here, an Australian recruitment drive is offering interested Irish teachers visa fees, travel costs, and competitive salaries to relocate.
Traveling between Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and Sligo in the coming days, the recruitment campaign is hoping to sign up international teachers to teach in Catholic schools in Central, Northern, and Western Victoria.
Run by the Dioceses of Ballarat and Sandhurst, the project is offering to pay teachers' visa sponsorship fees, and reimburse flights, at a cost of up to €3,000 (5,000 AUD). The dioceses include 95 primary schools and 25 secondary schools.
The campaign is also offering more incentives for teachers who opt for more rural areas, with those matched to small rural schools to receive relocation reimbursement to the value of approximately €6,000 (10,000 AUD).
Competitive salaries, based on teachers’ prior experience, are also on offer ranging from €49,839 for those with two years of experience, to €72,000 for teachers with 11 years of experience. Teachers will also be able to apply for additional leadership allowances, worth up to €7,905.
The average starting salary for a primary school teacher who started teaching after 2011 here, currently stands at €40,635.
An average of 1,200 classes per day in primary and special schools did not have a teacher between September to December, according to Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) general secretary John Boyle. The vast majority of these vacancies were in areas with high rents.
All options must be looked at to ensure that no child is left without a qualified teacher, he added.
“With only 20 weeks until the start of the next academic term, we must not leave any stone unturned in our efforts to tackle the genuine obstacles that are preventing teachers from taking on roles or causing them to leave roles in certain high-cost areas.”
Efforts should also be ramped up to help teachers overseas return to these shores, such as giving them a full incremental credit for every day they teach abroad, shortening their payscales, and restoring allowances that were cut since 2012.
“The Irish government must act quickly to make working in Ireland's primary education system an attractive prospect for all.”