Trained teachers of in-demand subjects shut out of jobs because of where adverts are posted

Even before she enrolled in an education course in Ireland, Navjot Arora was a teacher in India, she said, recently.

“For me it’s like, when you teach, you learn something from younger people, right?” said Arora, sitting at a city centre café.

After finishing a master’s course at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), she got a job teaching at a post-primary school in Dublin. 

She’s working on her temporary graduate scheme immigration stamp 1G at the moment.

Her subjects are math and physics, she said. 

Math is among subjects that a government survey for 2023–2024 – the most recent period for which data is available – said there’s a shortage of qualified people to teach. 

“Mathematics had the most posts filled by out of field teachers,” it said. The survey, which got responses from 602 post-primary schools, found 135 posts filled by out-of-field teachers and another 53 vacant.

But when Arora – whose 1G stamp is set to expire in December – applied for a work permit to switch permissions and keep working, the Department of Employment rejected her application. 

The reason? Her role wasn’t advertised on one of the specific places the department requires as part of its Labour Market Needs Test (LMNT) condition for would-be holders of general employment permits. 

To fulfil the LMNT condition, employers must run an ad for the role offered to an immigrant from outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) on JobsIreland or European Employment Services (EURES) and “an additional second online platform” of their choice, for at least 28 days.

That’s to make sure citizens of Ireland, the United Kingdom and EEA countries get first dibs on job openings, said a Department of Employment spokesperson. 

The rejection email to Arora said, “If the post was only advertised on educationposts.ie, this is not sufficient.” 

Where the job is advertised is out of Arora’s control, she said. Teaching job ads are normally placed on education-focused portals and not elsewhere, she said. At her school, “they have obligations to advertise on educationposts.ie”, Arora said.

Arjun Desai, a qualified secondary school teacher – who currently teaches computer science – said he’s in the exact same boat. “Because of a bureaucratic shortfall I have no control over.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Employment said it is not aware of “any regulation, or legislation which prohibit the advertising of roles in the education sector, or any other sector” on JobsIreland or EURES.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education and Youth said recruitment decisions are made by individual schools, subject to conditions set out in “Section 24(3) of the Education Act 1988” as amended. 

That segment of the law doesn’t impose any restriction on advertising. 

We can fix it 

Arora said that her school – whose staff have been sympathetic to her struggles – has to follow policies set by the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools (ACCS).

A spokesperson for ACCS has not yet addressed a query sent on Friday evening asking whether it is responsible for deciding where its member schools advertise teaching roles. 

A spokesperson for the Teaching Council said it doesn’t play a part in “employment of teachers or the advertisement of teaching roles”.

Eoghan Kenny TD, Labour Party’s spokesperson on education, said he recently drafted parliamentary questions for the relevant departments, urging them to help clear this hurdle.

“We currently have a shortage in teachers, and the Department of Education should be looking at a range of measures to increase applications and fill vacant roles,” he said.

Conor Dowling, a Green Party councillor and its spokesperson on education, said the bureaucratic obstacle blocking non-EEA teachers from getting jobs in Irish schools is “a really frustrating example of the system working against itself”.

The technicality of where a job was advertised makes shortage issues feel like policy failures, he said.

Although a spokesperson for the Department of Education said that yes, there are shortages of teachers in some sectors and places, but overall, the “number of unfilled teaching posts remains low with over 98% of teaching posts filled”.

The solution to the bureaucratic hurdle stopping non-EEA teachers from filling some of the vacant posts is pretty straightforward, said Dowling: update the LMNT to factor in the education sector’s policy for advertising jobs. 

But the spokesperson for the Department of Employment said it doesn’t have a plan to loosen LMNT rules further for specific jobs at the moment.

Lawyers have said in the past that LMNT is mostly a box-ticking exercise, as employers have already searched for a suitable candidate before offering the job to a non-EEA immigrant and agreeing to sponsor a work permit.

They don’t have to submit proof of how they landed on their decision to hire a non-EEA immigrant over an Irish, British, or an EEA worker as part of this second round of advertisements.

Just offering proof of advertising the job in places that the department wants is enough. 

And the LMNT is not the only way the government safeguards jobs for Irish and European workers. 

Its “50:50 rule” stops most employers from sponsoring new work permits if non-EEA workers make up half of their workforce. 

I thought it would be easier 

Carrying out the LMNT isn’t a work-permit application requirement if a job has been classified as a “critical skills” role in a list compiled and updated by the Department of Employment.

In the “ Teaching and Educational Professionals” section of the list, though, only third-level lecturers are mentioned. 

Academics with PhDs awarded two years before applying for work permits – who also have at least one year of experience – are eligible for critical skill permits, the list suggests.

Those granted a critical skills work permit have a shorter path to Stamp 4, a coveted immigration stamp that offers permanency and entitlement to social safety nets. 

Industry leaders can lobby the Department of Employment to consider adding a job to the list if they struggle to fill it with skilled workers.

The spokesperson for the Department of Education said it does liaise with the Department of Employment on issues related to its work permit scheme.

Desai, the qualified secondary school teacher in Dublin, said he’s been living here for eight years already, and that makes the bureaucratic quirk that shuts him out of the work permit scheme harder to process.

In all his years here, he’s been “committed to teaching, and contributing meaningfully to the community”, said Desai.

Arora said that as a woman, it is important to her to have an independent immigration stamp, one that’s not tied to marriage or a romantic partner – which allows holders to work without work permits – but the system doesn’t empower her to pursue that option. 

“There are many teachers on spouse stamps, but for us who aren’t married, it’s a struggle,” she said.

She moved here for a fresh start after a divorce, said Arora, hoping to find salve for life’s unpleasantness in a new place.

But the immigration struggles keep her up at night, she said. “Because of stress.”

If nothing changes, Arora said, she plans to enroll in a PhD course, then later apply for a critical skills permit to become a university lecturer.

That means saying goodbye to her younger students, she said, which is not easy.

But “I can’t think about my future in the school”, Arora said.