PPLI Audit of Foreign Languages - Flipbook - Page 68
Teaching Council
The following table is from the Teaching Council, and relates to the number of teachers registered with them. This
does not necessarily reflect the actual number of teachers who are currently employed as language teachers. Nine
out of ten categories have increased, English and Irish are being included as they are core subjects, and therefore
represent a control group. There has been a 43% increase in the number of registered Irish teachers over the last
five years. In comparison there has been an increase of 47% for Spanish teachers, 32% for French and Italian teachers,
27% for German teachers, and 14% for Russian and Japanese teachers.
LANGUAGE
N U M B E R O F R E G I S T E R E D P O S T- P R I M A R Y T E A C H E R S O N T H E S E D AT E S
23 - 11 - 2012
23 - 11 - 2013
23 - 11 - 2014
23 - 11 - 2015
23 - 11 - 2016
23 - 11 - 2017
English
4844
5637
6083
6335
6735
7068
Irish
2867
3356
3580
3721
3929
4092
French
1964
2252
2363
2421
2517
2587
German
819
929
964
990
1015
1043
Spanish
527
618
688
724
758
776
Italian
154
180
192
193
201
204
Russian
14
15
15
15
16
16
Japanese
7
9
10
10
10
11
Figure 50: Language teachers registered with Teaching Council between 2012 and 2017
This data needs to be interpreted in the context also of the relative numbers of examination sits in the different
languages over the same period. For example, although there has been an increase of 47% registering as Spanish
teachers, there has been an increase in the number of examination sits in Spanish of 57% which indicates that the
increase in the numbers of teachers registering in Spanish is not keeping up with the demand for Spanish.
This does not appear to be the case for other languages. There has been an increase of 32% for both French and
Italian teachers, whereas Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate over the same period has decreased by 6% for
French and 22% for Italian. Similarly, there has been an increase of 27% registering as German teachers, whereas
Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate over the same period has increased by the smaller percentage of 22%.
Russian is stable with 14% increase in registration of Russian teachers. In the same period, Leaving Certificate sits
have increased by 15% for Russian.
There has been a 14% increase in registration of Japanese teachers. In the same period, Leaving Certificate sits have
increased by 23% for Japanese so there is a need to build capacity in qualified Japanese teachers.
67
Audit of Foreign Languages Provision in Post-Primary Schools 2017
Post-Primary Languages Initiative February 2017 Draft Report
