merrion street

Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh T.D. has today (Thursday 12 December) praised the two main principals’ and deputy principals’ organisations for creating a new recruitment website for substitute teachers.

The Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN) and the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) have created the online Sub Seeker service to match available teachers with short term substitute vacancies in schools.

Minister McHugh said:

Congratulations to the IPPN and NAPD on the new online recruitment service. It will make it easier for schools to recruit substitute teachers.

I hope it will build on the steps that the Department is taking on teacher supply and the work others are undertaking to help address staffing challenges in schools. The Turasabhaile.com initiative involving post primary school management bodies, including the ETBI, ACCS, JMB as well as the NAPD, shows the benefit of new recruitment models.

Collaboration and engagement with and between all stakeholders is important to tackle the issue of teacher supply in schools across the country.

I want to encourage teachers and schools to register with the new online service. Their engagement will be key to its success.

Sub Seeker is accessed from educationposts.ie and is live from today.

Páiric Clerkin, IPPN chief executive, said:

Sub Seeker will assist school leaders with short term recruitment and hopefully ensure that every available primary and second level substitute teacher can be employed instantly to cover absences.

National Director of the NAPD Clive Byrne said: 

Colleagues are experiencing such a shortage of qualified substitutes that it makes sense for NAPD and IPPN to collaborate and pool our respective systems in a new partnership called Sub Seeker. I hope that Sub Seeker will become a ‘one stop shop’ for colleagues seeking substitutes.