The shortage of teachers with digital and CS skills

Ireland is experiencing a significant shortage of teachers, with Maths, Engineering and other STEM subjects among the hardest vacancies to fill. This research has found that one of the main barriers to expanding CS education in Ireland is a lack of qualified teachers.

An accredited CS teacher must have at least 60 ECTS credits of CS at honours degree level, as well as a recognised teacher education qualification, such as the two-year Professional Masters in Education (PME). Universities offer this as a full-time course, including a school-placement component, which limits students’ ability to work during this two-year period, potentially inhibiting the ability of experienced CS graduates to qualify as teachers.

Recommendations

This research highlights a range of emergent issues and challenges for the effective integration of computing skills and practices within formal education in Ireland across the primary and post-primary sector. In acknowledging and tackling the tightly intertwined issues of gender balance, equity and inclusion, there is a necessity for all students attending primary and post-primary school to have equal opportunity to develop basic CS understanding and skills, including computational thinking and coding. In our analysis and in proposing the four key recommendations below we demonstrate that there is an imperative for change in educational policy required.

As of August 2022 there were 34 accredited CS teachers registered with the Teaching Council of Ireland. Of the total of 140 teachers currently teaching Leaving Certificate CS, the vast majority of those are doing so without Teaching Council accreditation for the subject. A key finding in this research is that the lack of qualified teachers is a critical barrier to making the Coding Short Course and Leaving Certificate CS available in schools.

To ensure the integration of CS across formal education, computing education thinking must be embedded within all initial teacher education programmes and through continued investment in in-service continuous professional development programmes for teachers.