Towards a Better Future

Towards a Better Future: A Review of the Irish School System
The Teaching Council set planning afoot in relation to the reconceptualisation of the new, extended
duration courses. In August 2011, it published Initial Teacher Education: Criteria and Guidelines for
Programme Providers and, in September, Strategy for the Review and Professional Accreditation of Existing
Programmes. The higher education institutions also got to work in preparing and planning for the new
programmes. In due course, the Council established accreditation review teams for all the
institutions. Visits were made to each college and detailed discussions took place on the
reconceptualised programmes based on the criteria and guidelines designed by the Council. As well
as changes in course duration, significant reforms were introduced in areas such as course content,
styles of teaching and engagement, school practice arrangements, relationships with schools, research
training, staff-student ratio, and student resources. While demanding in terms of time, effort and
resource, it is gratifying to record that all stakeholders worked hard to ensure that the new
arrangements would lead to greatly enriched initial teacher education programmes. Under the
reformed plan, the B.Ed. concurrent programme is a four-year honours degree course, while the new
two-year consecutive course leads to a Professional Master of Education (PME). In the new course
design for ITE, the Council stated:
The foundation studies, professional studies and the school placement should be
carefully planned in the light of changing understandings of the nature of learning
and the theory practice relationship, so that there is an appropriate balance between
them and their inter-relationship is made explicit.
(Teaching Council, 2011b, p. 12)
Unlike the parlous position of Education as a subject in some other countries, as discussed in John
Furlong’s recent book, Education – An Anatomy of the Discipline, (Furlong, 2013, pp. 181-200), in
Ireland the education foundation studies are still seen as providing an underpinning role. The
Council’s document states that the foundation studies should provide:
■ research informed insights into student teachers’ understanding of the practices of teaching,
learning and assessment
■ an illumination of the key dimensions of the professional context in which the thinking and
actions of teachers are carried out
■ the basis for a strong professional ethic in teaching
■ the basis for reflective practice (Teaching Council, 2011b, p.13).
The focus on the teacher as reflective practitioner is supported by emphasis on small group teaching,
tutorials and workshops, and the compilation of professional development portfolios. Student
teachers are being oriented towards collaborative collegial engagement in the school as a learning
community. Students receive research training and undertake a research project in their course work.
A very striking feature of the new courses is the much greater emphasis on partnership and
collaboration between the HEIs and the schools, and the enhanced role beyond teaching practice
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