THE STANDING Committee of Teacher Unions and University Education Departments will launch a document on teacher induction at a conference in Dublin on May 25th.
The standing committee, which is a forum for policy makers and education heads, will make a case for the development, as a policy priority, of a structured induction programme for all newly qualified teachers.
The programme would start at the point of entry to work, whether the new teachers are permanent, part-time or temporary. The committee says the new entrants should have reduced teaching hours to allow them to work with mentor teachers and other relevant school staff in preparing and evaluating their classroom work.
The mentors' role would be to assist newly qualified teachers in their first year of employment; mentor teachers should receive appropriate training and be adequately remunerated.
It is intended that the induction programme would be distinct from the probationary process, which may or may not take place at the same time.
Frances Leahy, a teacher in St Aidan's Community School in Tallaght, Co Dublin, who has carried out research in this area, says new teachers experience a "reality shock".
She explains: "They are launched into the deeply complex school situation as they begin their first year of teaching." She says that new teachers need support on three different levels - at school level, at their craft in the classroom and at the personal level.
In response to a questionnaire Leahy sent to 40 new teachers - none in permanent jobs - in community schools in the Leinster area, she discovered that 60 per cent joined large schools with over 700 students. There was no real formal instructional support - observation/feedback, team-teaching, mentoring - taking place in the majority of schools. Over 90 per cent said they were supported by colleagues informally.
One third of the group felt their health was poorer in their first year; 65 per cent found their first year tiring; 20 per cent would prefer a teaching position closer to home; 85 per cent felt they were able to talk about their teaching problems.
"It's been increasingly recognised that some new teachers leave after three or four years," Leahy says. This might not happen, she believes, if they had support and advice as part of a formalised programme of induction.
