The Supply of Secondary Mathematics Teachers in Ireland: Insights from the Consecutive Initial Teacher Education Route

Mathematics has long been heralded as a cornerstone subject within secondary school curricula worldwide. However, despite its recognised importance, there has been a pronounced issue with the global supply of teachers in the subject, which has received much attention over the past 15 years. Considering the well-established link between effective teaching and student learning, the lack of a strong supply of highly qualified mathematics teachers has serious implications for students’ educational experiences and outcomes. In Ireland, both government policies and academic literature have sought to address and highlight the issue of teacher supply. Despite such attention, there appears to be a crisis-level shortage of newly qualified mathematics teachers graduating from consecutive (i.e., postgraduate) initial teacher education programmes. The aim of this paper is to take a closer look at the numbers of mathematics teachers graduating from this route through a detailed analysis of data from two Irish universities. The paper also examines some of the underlying reasons for mathematics teacher shortages and explores the motivations of mathematics graduates who choose to pursue secondary teaching through the consecutive route.