Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I am not in discussions because the report has now been presented to me, as Minister, and it is up to me to make a decision on its contents. The debate has taken place and the education partners have all been given an opportunity to contribute. They want to see what my input will be and that is the next step.

I made a very wide-ranging speech last year where I questioned a number of issues relating to teacher training. Much more time should be spent preparing student teachers to deal with disadvantage, special needs, behavioural issues, multicultural issues and parental demands. In that context, there are issues which I have already raised that need to be examined. Student teachers, for example, are spending a considerable amount of time doing degree programme subjects, for instance, French, which may not need to take up so much time, particularly in light of the other issues that must be dealt with by the training colleges. The higher diploma in education, being a shorter course, needs to be more focused, but there is an enormous number of issues that need to be dealt with in a training context. There was a third question from the Deputy——

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