Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Laoghaire for raising this important issue. Under section 38 of the Teaching Council Act, all initial teacher education programmes must be accredited by the Teaching Council for registration purposes. There are two standard routes recognised by the Teaching Council to become a primary teacher. These are a four-year undergraduate bachelor of education programme and a two-year postgraduate professional master of education programme. There are four State-funded higher education institutions, HEIs, providing primary initial teacher education, ITE, namely, Dublin City University, DCU, institute of education; Marino Institute of Education; Maynooth University; and Mary Immaculate College. Each of these offers both a full-time primary ITE undergraduate and a postgraduate programme. There is one private provider, Hibernia College, which provides postgraduate programmes only, primary and post primary.

The number of students admitted to primary, concurrent and consecutive programmes in State-funded HEls is determined by the Minister for Education, having regard to teacher supply and demand issues, and available resources. The work of the Department on matters related to teacher supply and demand continues. A technical report, Developing a Teacher Demand and Supply Model for lreland 2020-2038, which was published in 2019, is being updated and will inform proposals for future development in this area. The report is expected to be published in the autumn.

Recognising issues which have been experienced with teacher supply at primary level in recent years, the Minister for Education approved 610 additional places in primary programmes in the current State-funded providers. There were 90 additional places on the bachelor of education programme in 2023 and 2024, making a total of 1,090 each year; 30 additional places on the bachelor of education through the medium of Irish in 2023, making a total of 60 in 2023; and 200 additional places on the professional master of education primary teaching programme in 2023 and 2024, making a total of 400 each year.

On a final note, last year, the Minister for Education published an initial teacher education policy statement which presented a vision for policy and provision across the sector. One of the guiding principles of the policy is the continuation of the vision that initial teacher education will be led by a small number of university-led centres of teacher education excellence and that each of these will have a critical mass to provide for good teaching, research and international co-operation, with structures to ensure meaningful collaboration across education sectors. The policy statement also seeks to ensure that initial teacher education is strongly connected with and relevant to the needs of the education system so that, to the greatest extent possible, provision is aligned to the needs of the system. Future plans regarding provision at primary level will be informed by this also.

The Department, in its strategy and policy statement, clearly outlines the vision for provision across the sector and highlights the importance of not having stand-alone programmes but having a plugged-in and co-ordinated system.

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