DES: The Minister for Education and Skills, Joe McHugh T.D, today (Thursday November 29th) welcomed the first of 5 regional teacher supply focus groups to be held under the Teacher Supply Action Plan, which the Minister recently launched. The development of the Actions Plan was led by the Teacher Supply Steering Group, chaired by the Secretary General of the Department, in recognition of the significant challenges for some schools experience in recruiting teachers. At primary level, the recruitment of substitute teachers is problematic while at post primary recruitment of teachers in certain specific subject areas, such as STEM, modern languages, Irish and home economics is proving difficult. Read press release