Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent)
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815. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if dyslexia and literacy assessment training will become mandatory for persons studying a professional master of education, primary teaching; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19242/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Céim – Standards for Initial Teacher Education (ITE)  was published by the Teaching Council in November 2020.  Céim sets out the requirements that all ITE programmes in Ireland must meet in order to gain accreditation from the Teaching Council.  It is also a benchmark for anybody seeking to register as a teacher in Ireland.  The review by the Teaching Council of 68 existing programmes in 14 providers in accordance with the Céim standards commenced in November 2021 and will continue into 2023.

As part of the review, the previous sixteen mandatory elements for all programmes of ITE have been updated and amalgamated into seven core elements, one of which is: Inclusive Education.

Inclusive Education is described as ‘any aspect of teachers’ learning aimed at improving their capacity to address and respond to the diversity of learners’ needs; to enable their participation in learning; and remove barriers to education through the accommodation and provision of appropriate structures and arrangements to enable each learner to achieve the maximum benefit from his /her attendance at school’. Furthermore, the standards reference that ‘the Teaching Council’s view of a truly inclusive approach to professional practice recognises that teachers encounter a diverse range of needs in the course of their teaching, regardless of setting. This will include additional learning needs (e.g. autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia) and learning needs associated with diverse linguistic, socioeconomic, cultural and ethnic (including Traveller community, Roma) backgrounds.’