Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am used to generic responses to Topical Issue matters, and I am not blaming the Minister of State for this one, but the question I raised was to discuss the need to provide primary teacher training in Cork. The Minister of State's reply must add up to a few hundred words, none of which is "Cork" and none of which deals with the specific issue, namely, the location of teacher training, which is a significant part of the question I am raising. Nobody is suggesting that any of this would happen extraneous to the system but what is required is that the Department provide a favourable response to UCC in developing its plans in order that it can, with confidence, invest in what is required to secure the support of the Teaching Council and HEI accreditation. The university needs Department co-operation and support to deliver this.

The Department's statement indicates that it recognises "issues which have been experienced with teacher supply". That is a point well made but there are people in the Cork area who are not in a position to travel to the other universities or take up the Hibernia College courses because of their situation and the cost-of-living crisis they face.

According to the statement, "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". UCC is already recognised as a centre of excellence because of its very long record of work in this area. Some of the most well-known education academics in the country, for example, Áine Hyland, have worked at UCC's school of education, which is a well established and recognised centre of excellence. UCC would fit very much into the "small number of university-led centres of teacher education excellence ... [with] critical mass to provide for good teaching, research and international co-operation". The university meets all those criteria. I recognise that it needs to do all that is required with regard to the Teaching Council but it first needs a positive response from the Department and an indication from it that it will support the proposal. UCC can then invest the money required to ensure classes can be delivered in the next year or two.

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