It’s all go in teacher education at the moment, as the 19 separate Colleges of Education for primary teachers are in a process of coming together, joining with universities and putting more emphasis on research and sharing learning with teachers from different levels. The results for future teacher trainees should be a quite different college experience.
The Bachelor of Education for primary teachers now takes four years in every College of Education. Post-primary teacher trainees take a one-year full-time university post-graduate course. There is also the option to train as a post-primary teacher online through Hibernia College.
Students in St Patrick’s College in Drumcondra will work even more closely with students in DCU, Mater Dei and All Hallows and engage in more research than their predecessors. The idea is that primary teachers, post-primary teachers and early education students interact during training.
DCU, with its three new colleges, is now the powerhouse provider of teacher taining and research. Together the three colleges enrol around 3,500 students, and if you add in DCU, three are up to 13,000 students across all faculties. It’s a far cry from the days of small clusters of primary teacher trainees cloistered together with only each other for company.
Similar coalitions are taking place in the south of the city, with Trinity College, UCD, the National College of Art and Design and the Marino Institute forming another teacher-education entity, and in Limerick, where Mary Immaculate College and the teacher training at Limerick Institute of Technology are forming a closer relationship with the post-primary teacher function in the University of Limerick.
The School of Education at NUI Galway is also working with St Angela’s College Sligo as part of the sectoral overhaul.
What it all means for aspiring teachers is longer degrees (an extra year), more research, more craic as different levels mix it up together and new campuses and scenes springing up all over the country. So, where’s the best place to study teaching? Watch this space . . .
