Ms Martina Mannion:

Coming back to the other points relating to the importance of mainstream teacher training, that is a critical point in supporting children who are deaf or hard of hearing in our schools. The Teaching Council has asked, under Céim, which is the standards in teacher education, for all higher education institutions to review their initial teacher-training modules to ensure that they meet some of the core competencies, one of which is inclusion. That work is happening at the moment. By the end of this year, the Teaching Council will have further information as to how that has been embedded. It is intended, in that circumstance, that it will then engage further with the Minister as to whether anything further is required.

That is for the initial teacher training. Ongoing continuous professional development, CPD, is also very important because of the fact that we already have teachers in the system who are already working in schools.

CPD is provided through a variety of supports. It is provided by the cohorts of the Professional Development Service for Teachers, PDST, Junior Cycle for Teachers, JCT, and the centres for excellence. It is also separately provided by the NCSE. For example, the council supports events for teaching deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Teacher participation and reactions are gathered and examined, and four groups of teachers are organised according to: deafness and additional need; mild hearing loss; moderate hearing loss; and severe and profound.

CPD was also provided to qualified teachers of the deaf as part of the postgraduate course in special education in some of the colleges, such as UCC and Mary Immaculate College. Members of the visiting teaching service attended the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf that was held in 2021 and a range of resources and professional developments are identified to inform the future education of this. Those are specifically available from the NCSE. In 2021-22, 129 teachers availed of this support by the NCSE.

In addition, on the PDST, the important point is that it recognises that all learners are diverse and that all the supports must be underpinned by the principle of universal design for learning as distinct from universal design for the buildings. That is an important component in ensuring that all professional development for teachers is modelled on this. All of the JCT supports that the CPD has provided outline supports for children in classrooms, including deaf or hard-of-hearing students.

Schools for deaf or hard-of-hearing students participate in whole-school junior cycle CPD. That is facilitated by the junior cycle implementation support team on the level 1 and level 2 learning programmes. There is also junior cycle subject-specific clusters where schools can participate. There is then community of practices and then there is the universal design for learning. There is ongoing engagement.