From ‘sojourning’ to standards: a critical reflection on the evolution of initial teacher education policy in Ireland

ABSTRACT

Given the many foci and functions of the education system in Ireland in both the colonial era (up to 1921) and since, teacher selection, training/education, recruitment and management have been topical and contested issues. This article traces key trends in the historical evolution of initial teacher education (ITE) policy for primary teachers in Ireland over the past two centuries, moving from a period where training involved ‘sojourning’ around schools to the contemporary era where ITE programmes are underpinned by elaborate and prescriptive standards. Framed within the wider international socio-political context, a particular emphasis is placed on the implications of policy developments in the past decade that have fundamentally altered the landscape of ITE. The paper argues that Ireland’s contemporary ITE policy is characterised by a range of tensions and debates that arise from the interface of its historical lineage with contemporary global discourses.

KEYWORDS:

• Ireland
• history
• standards
• initial teacher education
• teacher education policy

Introduction

A strong relationship between the quality of teaching and the quality of learning has long been assumed and asserted (Darling-Hammond 2021; Singh et al. 2021), making teacher quality a perennial issue both in Ireland and internationally. Central to many academic and policy discourses is that the quality of an education system pivots on the quality of its teachers (Barber and Mourshed 2007; European Commission 2018), and thus the ‘improvement’ of teachers and teacher educators has become national priorities (Cochran-Smith 2021; Gleeson, Sugrue, and O’Flaherty 2017; McGarr and Berit Emstad 2022). Indeed, many of the recent global reforms of teacher education can be traced to a dissatisfaction with the status quo in terms of teacher ‘quality’ and the ‘performance’ of national education systems (Apple 2012; Biesta 2015; Connell 2009). Teacher education policy, no more than wider education policy, is shaped and influenced by a nation’s historical, political, economic, cultural, religious and linguistic context. Before moving to these national features, an exploration of the wider global context and its impact on Ireland is a useful starting point for this article.

Ireland’s educational structures and policy have been influenced by its former colonial relationship with Great Britain (Limond 2010; Skerritt 2019) but markedly more so by its membership of international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU) (Clarke and O’Doherty 2021). Ireland’s membership of the OCED since the 1960s and the EU since the 1970s has been particularly impactful in recent decades, and is increasingly linked to the embedding of human capital, neo-liberal, standardisation, measurement and accountability discourses in Irish education (Säfström and Biesta 2023).

The Lisbon Strategy and Barcelona Objectives have advanced a harmonisation of education policy across Europe, introducing a learning outcomes approach across all levels of education systems and a common approach to credit weightings across Europe (the European Credit Transfer System) to support citizen mobility and employability. The meta data and benchmarking processes produced by the OECD, particularly through its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), have also awakened political and public consciousness on teacher education and teacher educator policy and practice (Sahlberg 2011; Sellar and Lingard 2014). Conway and Murphy (2013) describe the influence of these international factors, particularly poor PISA results for Ireland in 2009, allied to a more proactive policy making environment and a severe recession, as a rising tide meeting a perfect storm in relation to teacher education in Ireland.

Significant publications such as Teachers Matter (OECD 2005), the Common European Principles for Teacher Competence and Qualifications (European Commission 2005), Improving the Quality of Teacher Education (Commission of the European Communities 2007) and Effective Teacher Policies: Insights from PISA (OECD 2018) have assisted in embedding international discourses regarding competences, research-informed policy and practice, outcomes and standards into Irish teacher education policy and practice (Caena 2014). More recent efforts at harmonisation and encouragement of national policy ‘borrowing’ of European teacher education policy is further evidenced in the EU Education and Training 2020 initiative (Klatt and Milana 2020) as well as more recent proposals for a European Education Area by 2025 (Kushnir 2022). As O’Doherty (2014) argues, external ‘voices’ in the form of the OECD and EU have stimulated and contrived rapid reforms in teacher education policy over the last decade.

The purpose of this article is to excavate the historical origins and explore the contemporary contours of primary ITE policy in Ireland, with a view to understanding better its current tensions and discourses. While rooted in the Irish context, an analysis of historical and contemporary global influences and discourses are central to the exploration. It contributes to existing scholarship and knowledge by bringing together and analysing the interface and influence of historical developments on contemporary discourses. In terms of approach, this article employs document analysis (Bowen 2009) on the key ‘deliberate’ as well as inadvertent sources relating to historical and contemporary ITE policy. Document analysis techniques are complemented by narrative policy analysis (Roe 1994) in order to create a coherent metanarrative from the analysis of individual documents. Narrative policy analysis provides an opportunity for the employment of wider primary and secondary sources in the review, supporting the contextualisation of data and its linkage to wider national and global discourses.

In terms of structure, the first part of the paper critically traces and establishes the historical origins of primary teacher education structures and policy in Ireland (and in the Irish Free State/South of Ireland from 1921), focusing on key milestones and discourses. This historical examination is presented across two distinct eras: firstly the period from the 1700s until the advent of political independence in 1921, followed by later developments in the 1921–2011 period. The article then moves to examine four key developments in the 2011–2023 period that are impacting significantly on the current direction of teacher education policy, namely the restructuring of ITE, the extension of ITE programme duration, the professional accreditation of ITE programmes and the establishment of a continuum of teacher education. The discussion section explores resulting opportunities and challenges for the contemporary system across five overarching themes: policy coherence, power and agency, quality assurance, higher-education institution-school partnerships, and teacher diversity. The article concludes with some signposts for the future directions of teacher education policy in Ireland given the contemporary trajectories.

The historical backdrop

ITE policy prior to political independence (1700s–1921)

Teacher education structures and policy for primary teachers in Ireland have deep roots and, as characterised by Coolahan (1984, 1), a ‘chequered history’. Like many professions, teaching has its origins in an apprenticeship-style preparation for practice at primary school level. In the ‘Hedge School’¹ system, future monitors² or teachers were chosen from among the most able and promising students. McManus (2004, 87) asserts that given the high academic expectations of Hedge School masters,³ ‘poor scholars⁴ had to undergo a long and arduous training, under schoolmasters of repute’. Dowling (1935, 92–93) reports on an account of the poor scholar’s journey of training, revealing the high esteem for learning and the learned in Irish society at that time:

The enterprising spirit of these literary adventurers is surprizing; they will start from the home of their infancy – traverse the southern parts of the island – visit every village – sojourn in every school – examine every local curiosity, and return to their birth-place, after perhaps a year’s absence, without having, for that space of time, expended or even possessed a single half-crown, so warm is the hospitality of the peasantry, and so high their respect for learning!

Following a period of apprenticeship with a master or a number of masters, the novice teacher moved to an area with a vacancy or replaced the master when deemed ready to take up a position or establish a school. It was a symbol of prestige for a master to be engaged with a poor scholar, enhancing both the master’s and school’s reputation.

There was a concern that many Hedge School masters were of a more liberal nature, with church and State authorities ‘fearing their potential for political subversion and alleging immoral content in books used’ (Coolahan 2017, 8). Establishing State control of education, and particularly controlling the character and practice of teachers, was a key principle and objective of the British authorities in establishing a national system of education in 1831 (O’Donovan 2017). In terms of governance, a National Board was established to manage the national system of education in Ireland and it established national training colleges, and associated Model Schools, for men in 1834 and for women in 1842. As the National Board stated, it wished to attract teachers ‘whose conduct and influence must be highly beneficial in promoting morality, harmony, and good order’ (Commissioners of National Education in Ireland CNEI 1835, 4). In this regard, teachers were ‘summonsed’ to training based on the selection report of local inspectors and a character reference from a religious pastor was required for entry to the training colleges. Central to the training was the provision, as stated by the Commissioners in 1843, that ‘a vigilant superintendence is at all times exercised over their moral conduct’ (CNEI 1843, 21). Harford (2009) asserts that the training was underpinned by colonial ideology to normalise the values and identity of the imperial power. As the rules and regulations of the national system evolved, they articulated a more sophisticated plan for the preparation of teachers – including their selection, training, recruitment, management and dismissal (Walsh 2022).

To foster the establishment of schools in every parish and region, the various churches (in particular the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church and the Methodist Church) partnered with the State in the founding, operation and management of schools. This resulted in most schools being vested in religious rather than State entities.⁵ However, church-State animosities were to greatly hamper the development of teacher education in the 1800s as the churches and the State fought for control over the hearts, minds and souls of teachers. The national training colleges established in Dublin, and the District Model Schools from the mid-1800s, were non-denominational, and therefore seriously objectionable to the Catholic Church in particular, which viewed religion as central to identity, training and primary education (O’Donoghue and Harford 2011). Indeed for much of the period 1830 to 1880, many teachers remained untrained or gained a classification through an examination system operated by inspectors rather than receiving formal training. This exam-based system allowed selected monitors or pupil teachers to demonstrate their proficiency to teach after passing a series of annual examinations, mostly based on the content of the national school curriculum (Parkes 2016).

While there was much on which the churches and State disagreed in the colonial era, they were united in the desire for conservative, compliant and moralistic primary school teachers. This led to a State decision in 1884 to financially support denominational training colleges. By 1900, there was one State-run training college and six denominational training colleges (five Catholic and one Church of Ireland), mostly single-sex, offering a two-year training programme with each under the oversight of a Head Inspector. These operated strict training programmes, with a very strong emphasis on the moral conduct of teachers in training. This resulted in an increasingly educated and professional cadre of primary teachers in Ireland who commanded the respect and esteem of local communities, with the ‘call’ to teaching being highly prized (Coolahan 2017; Walsh 2022). By the time of political independence, there was very strong church and State control over primary teacher selection, training, recruitment and management.

ITE policy following political independence (1921–2011)

Following political independence in the 1920s, and the partition of Ireland North and South (Lynch 2019), provision for primary teacher education in the 26-county Irish Free State (South) was solidified within five denominational teacher training colleges. The training colleges operated as boarding institutions with few academic freedoms and remained unaffiliated to any other higher education institutions or universities, meaning there was no engagement between primary student teachers and other students. There was strict surveillance of the work of the training colleges by the Inspectorate, which controlled the content of the programme, set and corrected examinations and inspected the work of lecturers (Coolahan 2013). A major focus of teacher education policy in the 1920s was the revival of the Irish language and the building of a new and Gaelic national identity through the education system (Harford 2010; Walsh 2021). Alongside the five denominational teacher training colleges, second-level boarding schools called Preparatory Colleges were instituted to ensure an adequate supply of Irish-language speakers entering the training colleges that would subsequently staff primary schools tasked with the Irish language revival (Department of Education 1930).⁶ The denominational nature of the training colleges and the strict State oversight over entry to ITE resulted in a reduced diversity in candidates becoming teachers in Ireland (Walsh and McDaid 2019).

The 1965–1975 period witnessed the next fundamental restructuring of teacher education policy and provisions following the publication and recommendations of a series of national reports (Department of Education 1965; Government of Ireland 1967; Higher Education Authority 1970). These developments are well summarised by Coolahan (2007, 4) as follows:

New institutions were established, old institutions were expanded, modernised and equipped, new course structures were designed with new styles of pedagogy, staff expertise was expanded, new course accreditation processes were introduced, teaching became an all-graduate profession, with a mixture of concurrent and consecutive initial teacher education programmes …

The training colleges were rebranded as ‘colleges of education’ with greater independence from the Department of Education and an emphasis was placed on ‘teacher education’ as opposed to ‘teacher training’. A three-year Bachelor of Education degree for primary teachers was initiated in 1974, while colleges of education became affiliated to universities for accreditation and awarding purposes. There was also a greater diversity in terms of entrants, with more mature students and colleges became co-educational over time. Teacher supply issues led to the introduction of a postgraduate, consecutive teacher education programme, also diversifying the profile of student teachers (O’Donoghue, O’Doherty, and Harford 2017). Throughout this period, entry to the colleges of education remained highly competitive (the average entrant to primary teacher education programmes in the 1980s was rated in the top quartile of all entrants to higher education colleges) and primary school teaching remained a respectable and respected profession in Irish society (Greaney, Burke, and McCann 1987).

From the early 1990s, international and national factors coalesced to prompt considerable reshaping and revisions of the teacher education landscape. The starting point and springboard for this was the OECD (1991) report on education in Ireland, which placed a particular focus on teacher education. While complimentary about teacher education quality and provisions, it introduced into the policy vernacular the concept of the teacher education continuum and it advocated stronger linkages and relationships between ITE providers and placement schools. This vision for teacher education was further advanced in Irish educational policy and legislative provisions in the decade that followed, most importantly within the White Paper on Education (Department of Education 1995) and the Education Act (Government of Ireland 1998). However, in spite of the policy momentum in the 1990s, Clarke and O’Doherty (2021, 63–64) argue that ‘the work of the teacher and of teacher education during the 1990s remained relatively obscure, determined by the universities and the churches, subject to little external review, and operating in a policy vacuum’.

One key development on the teacher education policy landscape that interrupted this relative obscurity was the establishment of an autonomous, independent, statutory Teaching Council in 2006, underpinned by the Teaching Council Act (Government of Ireland 2001). The Teaching Council has responsibility for promoting, supporting and regulating the teaching profession in Ireland across the continuum of teacher education. It operates under the aegis of the Department of Education, specifically linked to the Teacher Education Section which was established in 2004. It maintains a register of teachers and prescribes the various teacher education qualifications which are recognised for admission to the register; and only teachers registered with the Teaching Council can be employed in Irish schools and paid by the State. The Council which governs the organisation comprises 37 members, 22 of whom are practicing teachers and four of whom are nominated by the colleges of education or higher education institutions. Given the extensive powers of the Teaching Council in all dimensions of the teacher education continuum, such a representation for teacher educators seems minimal or perhaps, as Mullins (2004, 51) argues, ‘reflects the perceived marginality of teacher education in Ireland’.

Recent developments in teacher education policy (2011–2023)

Having established the colonial and post-colonial historical backdrop to ITE, it is timely to move to the contemporary landscape. From the first decade of the twenty-first century, the State began to play a much more proactive role in directing and shaping teacher education policy in a context of a deep financial crisis and austerity, and reduced trust in the public sector (Conway and Murphy 2013). This role is manifested through two key government departments: the Department of Education (especially the Teacher Education Section) and its agencies (such as the Higher Education Authority and the Teaching Council); and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, established in 2020, which has assumed policy responsibility for policy, funding and governance of the higher and further education and research sectors. For this paper, 2011 is used as the year to mark the shift to the contemporary landscape due to the publication of the Teaching Council’s (2011b) Policy on the Continuum of Teacher Education, which provided a roadmap for key shifts in ITE policy in the decade that followed. This increased and concentrated State intervention in ITE policy from 2011, and the key policy instruments employed, is now explored across four key policy directions.

Restructuring of ITE

The National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030 introduced structural reform to consolidate many of the smaller and stand-alone higher education institutions to a scale that would deliver quality, coherence, efficiency and research capacity (Higher Education Authority 2011). This was followed by an international thematic review of ITE led by Pasi Sahlberg (Sahlberg, Furlong, and Munn 2012) which proposed replacing the 19 centres for teacher education, which offered 40 different programmes in 2011, with six institutes of teacher education or ‘centres of excellence’ that were university-based. Global education discourses are evident in the vision of the report:

The Review Panel’s vision for the structure of ITE provision in Ireland is that by 2030 Ireland will have a network of teacher education institutions based on a small number of internationally comparable institutes of teacher education. Each of these institutes will offer research-based teacher education in internationally inspiring environments, provided at Masters level initially or through continuing professional development.

(Sahlberg, Furlong, and Munn 2012, 23)

A review in 2018 (Sahlberg 2019) acknowledged that considerable progress had been made in achieving that vision through varying degrees of merger, incorporation and collaboration. This has ultimately resulted in seven national centres for public teacher education that are located on university campuses or are affiliated to/accredited by a university, four of which provide primary ITE. These structural reforms took place at a time of economic retrenchment and such mergers, amalgamations and stronger associations have not been without challenges in terms of teacher education provisions and teacher educator identity (Hyland 2018). One additional consequence of the consolidation was to reduce the number of state-funded denominational ITE institutions from five in 2011 to two in 2023 (Clarke and O’Doherty 2021, 69).

A further development worthy of note on the higher education landscape was the establishment of an independent private-for-profit, online blended ITE provider, Hibernia College, which became a recognised provider in 2003. Its ITE programmes are validated by Quality and Qualifications Ireland and are professionally accredited by the Teaching Council. Hibernia College, unlike the public ITE providers, has no cap on entrants to its programmes and over the past two decades has become the dominant route for graduate entry (consecutive programme) to primary school teaching (DES 2015, 13).

Extension of ITE programme duration

Alongside the restructuring of teacher education provision, the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy (DES 2011) contained a policy provision to extend the duration of both concurrent and consecutive ITE programmes. Concurrent programmes were extended to a minimum of four year’s duration while consecutive programmes were extended to two years. The Literacy and Numeracy Strategy was largely developed as a response to poor PISA results in 2009 (Ó Breacháin and O’Toole 2013) and O’Doherty (2014, 45) argues that ‘the PISA results were not just a spur for change, but were utilised as a justification for radical reform’. Teacher education is characterised as one of ‘problems’ in need of reform within the Strategy, and it sets out ‘to improve the quality and relevance of initial teacher education’ (DES 2011, 32). The previous study of the humanities and liberal arts within ITE was replaced by an emphasis on direct aspects of teaching and learning, with a particular focus on literacy and numeracy. The decision to extend ITE programmes was followed by an ambitious timeline for enactment in a national climate of retrenchment, rationalisation and austerity. For example, Boland (2015, 8) reveals that between 2007 and 2015, funding to higher education institutions reduced by 38% while the number of staff decreased by 13%.

Professional accreditation of ITE programmes

In tandem with the restructuring of ITE institutions and the extension of ITE programmes came the most fundamental alteration to culture and practice: the professional accreditation of programmes of ITE by the Teaching Council. Previously ITE providers had considerable agency in programme design and structure, subject to academic accreditation procedures within their institutions. The outcome of this policy decision was that all ITE programmes required professional accreditation if their graduates were to be eligible to register with the Teaching Council. The Teaching Council set out its key vision for all stages of teacher education (Teaching Council 2011b) and this was followed by Initial Teacher Education: Criteria and Guidelines for Programme Providers (Teaching Council 2011a). The 2011 accreditation criteria and guidelines (Teaching Council 2011a), which underwent minor revisions in 2017 (Teaching Council 2017), were underpinned by three key pillars: a distinct emphasis on foundation studies, a continued emphasis on professional studies and a renewed vigour on teaching practice, which was reconceptualised as a broader concept – school placement. Aspirational demands were placed on schools and higher education institutions to develop a partnership approach to school placement and to collaborate in the organisation of school placement, placing increased emphasis on teachers and schools to support student teachers on placement. This expectation was further articulated in the Teaching Council’s Guidelines on School Placement (Teaching Council 2013, 2021a), while also acknowledging the voluntary nature of higher education institution-school partnerships. Specific emphasis was placed on the role of research in ITE and on promoting the ‘teacher as researcher’. O’Donoghue, O’Doherty, and Harford (2017, 186) argue that the 2011 and 2017 documents contained far more than ‘criteria and guidance’: the word ‘should’ was repeated 125 times in the 17 pages of ‘guidance’ and this was supplemented by 65 specific learning outcomes for graduates of ITE programmes.

In 2020, the Teaching Council published revised procedures for the accreditation of ITE programmes, Céim (the Gaelic word for ‘step’) (Teaching Council 2020). A major shift is noted in its presentation as a set of standards for higher education institutions to meet rather than the previous approach of guidelines and criteria. This trend ‘of shaping teaching by defining standards has spread across the globe and is now a feature of nearly all high-performing countries’ is noted by Darling-Hammond (2021, 296). Céim contains 92 references to ‘shall’ and 26 references to ‘should’ regarding the three broad areas of Programme Design, Programme Resourcing, and Placement Standards. The word ‘shall’ places an onus on higher education institutions to comply with a standard while ‘should’ requires compliance or an explanation as to why the standard is not being met. All ITE programmes in Ireland are currently undergoing reaccreditation with the Teaching Council using the Céim standards; a process that will be critiqued further in the Discussion.

Establishing a continuum of teacher education

Last of all, and somewhat extending the ITE focus, the embedding of a continuum of education in Ireland in the last decade has impacted on teacher education policy and practice. While formalising teacher induction processes and provision for teachers’ professional learning have been mooted for decades (Coolahan 2007), it was the Teaching Council’s Policy on the Continuum of Teacher Education (Teaching Council 2011b) that formalised and mobilised a national vision and policy structures. In terms of induction, national policy is articulated through the Droichead policy (the Gaelic word for ‘bridge’), and completion of the induction process is now a requirement of full registration with the Teaching Council. It is a formative process that involves personal, social and professional help and advice in the first year of teaching through mentoring (Teaching Council 2017). Provisions for the final stage of the continuum, teacher professional learning, has been articulated in the Cosán framework (the Gaelic word for ‘pathway’) (Teaching Council 2016). This framework for teachers’ learning allows teachers to record their engagement in a formal or informal learning process that impacts on their teaching.

Discussion

Having established the historical and contemporary issues on the landscape of ITE in Ireland, this article now moves to discuss the implications and consequences (both intended and unintended) of recent policy developments. The opportunities, challenges and tensions created by the interface of the historical origins and contemporary national and international discourses are explored across five key themes below.

Policy coherence

Policy and funding responsibility for ITE is now diffused across a range of agencies and authorities, including the Teaching Council, the Higher Education Authority, the Department of Education (particularly the Teacher Education Section) and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. More critically, the Teaching Council is a key author of ambitious teacher education policies, but it does not have access to, or authority over, the resources to support the enactment of the policies it develops (Clarke and O’Doherty 2021). In a context where funding for higher education has contracted significantly in recent years, the disconnect between policy and resourcing is a significant challenge for teacher education and a source of frustration for teacher educators (MacPhail and O’Sullivan 2019). While it is beneficial to have a teacher education continuum embedded in policy, fragmentation remains across its various elements and with little involvement to date of higher education institutions in State-initiated induction and professional learning processes.

Relatedly, while one of the core purposes of the restructuring of ITE over the last decade has been to create synergies, coherence and collaboration between the various levels and sectors, reaccreditation policies have reinforced traditional historical divides and boundaries in ITE (O’Doherty and Harford 2018, 664). In the newly constituted institutions offering teacher education across various sectors, the reaccreditation process is siloed by sector and undertaken by separate review panels, thus not fostering collaboration. The recent Department of Education policy statement on ITE (Department of Education 2023) provides a vision for ITE up to 2030 after a very rapid period of policy development. It is hoped that its many goals and objectives will be achieved across the planned three phases of implementation (2023–24/2025–27/2028–30) to address many of the perennial issues within teacher education regarding policy coherence, funding, quality assurance, student teacher diversity, and higher education institution-school partnerships.

Power and agency

The legislative power underpinning the Teaching Council, and its capacity to recognise or not the programmes offered by the various ITE providers, have created a new power structure in teacher education. As Clarke and O’Doherty (2021, 75) state, ‘The Council has become the driver of change, and to a significant extent teacher education providers have become the reactive partners, who are now expected to be compliant with the regulations and requirements of the Council’. The professional accreditation of ITE and the granularity of specification by the outside regulator has significantly eroded the professional and academic agency of teacher educators and teacher education institutions, introducing higher levels of State scrutiny and accountability to the role of teacher educators. This includes the setting of mandatory programme credit values, the extension of programme duration, and an accreditation process involving extensive documentation, oral hearings and site visits. It has also created a tension between the requirements and modus operandi of academic institutions and universities in terms of academic rigour, and the granular standards developed by the professional regulator, oftentimes which are challenging to reconcile within ITE programme design and delivery. Indeed, such oversight and intervention resonate with the high levels of control exercised by the State historically in the operation of the training colleges both under Westminster rule and in the early decades of the Irish Free State.

There is an opportunity now to mobilise the unity, shared identity and coherence that has been established through the structural reforms of ITE to inform, temper and indeed resist developments that are not in the best interests of teacher education. The establishment and ongoing work of the National Teacher Education and Teacher Educator Forum since 2017 has provided a valuable forum for learning and exchange, and for ‘contributing to a collective voice on shaping national teacher education and related research discourse’ on teacher education on the island of Ireland (MacPhail and O’Sullivan 2019, 504). Such mobilisation and greater visibility of and voice for teacher educators as public intellectuals have also been called for internationally (Alexander and Bourke 2021; White et al. 2021).

Quality assurance

State intervention within and oversight of ITE has oscillated over the past two centuries, with a current provision for multiple levels of oversight. Internally, ITE providers engage in quality assurance mechanisms such as quality reviews of departments and faculties. The restructuring of ITE since 2013 and the creation of ‘centres of excellence’ has brought public ITE provision into bigger university and institutional structures. In this context, attempts to micro manage the content of ITE programmes and to prescribe the work of teacher educators is more challenging than in traditional, free-standing colleges of education. Solbrekke and Sugrue (2014) argue that such high levels of outside prescription can disregard institutional governance, statute and autonomy structures and norms previously afforded to university departments and leadership. Externally, ITE providers and teacher educators are now accountable to an external professional body, the Teaching Council, by the requirement to meet its professional accreditation standards. The general thrust of these standards is to be welcomed. For example, the Teaching Council champions high standards of ITE through rigorous entry criteria and extended ITE programmes as well as protecting the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of teacher education. However, ITE programme professional accreditation processes have become extremely convoluted and onerous on providers, responding to complex and granular standards documents and producing voluminous documentation to demonstrate compliance with multifaceted mandatory requirements. The increasing spiral of specification within accreditation procedures has significantly eroded the professional and academic autonomy and discretion of teacher educators and indeed of higher education institutions.

This approach to quality assurance of ITE is at odds with the professional standards for induction (Droichead) and teachers’ professional learning (Cosán), which are underpinned by a very small number of non-evaluative standards (e.g. there are three non-evaluative standards in Droichead and two non-evaluative standards in Cosán compared to approximately 100 standards for ITE in Céim). It is also counter to the prevalent discourse in Ireland in terms of placing increased trust in teachers as agentic professionals in curricular matters (Hayward et al. 2022; National Council for Curriculum and Assessment 2023). While the quality assurance of ITE is important for its ongoing quality and for trust in its integrity, it is questionable if such a granular and cumbersome process in ITE is proportionate to the need or risk. This is especially the case when the high quality of teacher education and of teacher educators in Ireland has been recognised nationally and internationally, historically and contemporaneously (Coolahan 2004; Sahlberg, Furlong, and Munn 2012) and the teaching profession continues to be held in high regard by the public (Teaching Council 2010). Quality assurance processes for ITE should continue to be rigorous but revised to be supportive, generative, co-constructive and proportionate.

Higher education institution-school partnerships

School placement has been positioned as the fulcrum of ITE, promoting relationships between higher education institutions and schools as sites of practice. As previously noted, the Teaching Council's Guidelines on School Placement (2013, 2021a) create high expectations in terms of innovative partnerships between schools and higher education institutions, but are still premised on the basis of volunteerism and goodwill rather than any formal requirements. The reconceptualised and lengthier programmes introduced have resulted in greater demands being placed on schools in relation to such partnerships, leading to threats to capacity and goodwill within the system. As Harford and O’Doherty (2016, 47) argue:

Achieving full placement for students in a ‘partnership’ process, where there is no shared understanding of principles of teacher education, an infrastructure to establish real and shared responsibility for school placement is absent, and where traditional goodwill and professional courtesy are the only bases for engagement, is unsustainable in the long term.

Working towards a model of partnership and shared responsibility, rather than being ad hoc and goodwill-based, will require significant cultural shifts and financial investment. This has the potential for significant benefits for teacher educators as well as teachers and schools as evidenced in the recent Teaching Council’s (2021b) School Placement Innovation Report. Farrell (2021, 13) calls for a ‘democratic pedagogical partnership’ with schools that goes beyond bridging the theory-practice divide ‘to providing a “third space” that enables universities and schools to optimise synergies that foster innovative practice and experimentation’.

Teacher diversity

Extensive research reveals the challenges of diversifying the teaching profession in Ireland and internationally (Heinz, Keane, and Davison 2023; Schleicher 2012; Walsh and McDaid 2019). The duration (a minimum of four years on concurrent programmes and up to six years for consecutive programmes, followed by an induction process post-qualification) and the cost of programmes have led many entrants to question the level of personal and financial investment required to qualify as a teacher (Dolan 2016). Despite initiatives such as the Programme for Access to Higher Education (PATH) scheme which provides supports to attract underrepresented groups to the teaching profession (Burns, Colum, and O’Neill 2022), the structure, duration and costs of ITE in Ireland will remain a barrier for many potential entrants. More broadly, it is arguable that recent ITE policy developments have exacerbated teacher supply issues in Ireland in recent years (Darmody and Smyth 2016).

Internationalisation of both teacher education students and teacher educators was recommended in the Sahlberg, Furlong, and Munn (2012) report and the Sahlberg (2019) review. However, the granular nature of rules, regulations and procedures for teachers to register with the Teaching Council has often dissuaded internationally qualified entrants to the profession (Walsh and McDaid 2019). The strict recognition criteria maintained by the Teaching Council in terms of Irish language requirements for primary teachers, introduced initially in the 1920s, and having teaching experience in the specific sector for teacher educators (Teaching Council 2020, 15) militates against the sharing of rich experiences and skills across jurisdictions and levels of the education system. A flexibility and creativity in the recognition standards applied to teachers and teacher educators would support further diversification of both the teaching and teacher educator workforce (McDaid and Nowlan 2022).

Conclusion

As Akiba and LeTendre (2018, 3) highlight:

both teacher quality and teacher policy are created within each nation as a result of collective sensemaking, negotiation, and contestation among policy actors at global, national, and local levels … each nation’s history, cultural values, and current socioeconomic status affect what aspects of, or ideas about, teacher quality appear relevant or sensible.

This article has traced the origins and evolution of such sensemaking and contestation in ITE policy in Ireland that have resulted in the contemporary tensions and debates that characterise the current landscape. These origins of ITE were characterised by an apprentice-style and localised provision for teacher recruitment and training, led and managed by teachers themselves. State control of teacher selection, training, recruitment and management became a key policy objective from the 1830s, a policy ambition that led to tensions and conflict with the Catholic Church in particular which viewed such roles as integral to its mission. With the advent of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, a symbiotic Church-State relationship emerged in relation to the oversight and provision of primary teacher training. Following a period of increased independence for teacher education institutions in the 1970s, global and national influences coalesced from the early 2000s to re-establish a more central role for the State in teacher education policy.

Contemporary policy provisions for ITE in Ireland comprise a curious mix of competing influences and discourses, most particularly the historical and cultural lineage of its development alongside wider neoliberal and global discourses relating to accountability and standards. Within these discourses, ITE, teacher educators and teachers are often characterised as the ‘problem’ in need of ongoing reform and subject to greater accountability measures. There is still a quest for the State to be centrally involved in the oversight and management of ITE policy, perhaps an extension of the historical oversight exercised on the selection and management of those permitted to enter colleges of education and, subsequently, imbued with the right to teach young children in Ireland. More recent global discourses that favour the devolution of autonomy to higher education institutions as well as demanding greater accountability through quality complex assurance processes rest alongside these. This combination leads to tensions and contradictions within policy as competing and often dichotomous discourses sit side by side. In many ways, it feels like teacher educators are dancing to many different tunes in contemporary times, often with conflicting rhythms and harmonies. Given Ireland’s long tradition of holding teaching and primary teachers in high esteem, care needs to be taken so that teaching does not become an unattractive profession based on overly complex entry requirements, overly costly programmes, overly granular registration requirements and inadequate professional rewards. Similarly, we need to ensure that the brightest and the best continue to be attracted to become teacher educators. Perhaps we need an approach as advocated by Bacchi (2009) to re-explore and critique what ‘problems’ the current suite of ITE policy developments is setting out to ‘solve’, to ensure that energies and action are appropriately focused. We are now at a crossroads, and contemporary decisions will determine the course of events for future generations of teachers, pupils and Ireland’s education system as a whole.

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Thomas Walsh

Thomas Walsh is Associate Professor in the Department of Education, Maynooth University, Ireland. He joined the Department in 2014 having previously worked as a primary school teacher, an education researcher, and a primary school inspector at the Department of Education. His teaching and research interests focus on history of education, teacher education, education policy and legislation, and curriculum studies. He is currently the Chair of the Maynooth University Social Research Ethics Subcommittee and a member of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment’s Advisory Panel for the redevelopment of the primary school curriculum.

Notes

1. Hedge Schools were fee-paying schools established in temporary accommodation, sometimes outdoors under hedges, to provide education primarily for Catholics who were precluded by the Penal Laws from being educated.

2. Monitors were older or more able pupils who taught younger or less able pupils.

3. Teaching roles were primarily occupied by males in the Hedge Schools, and teachers were generally referred to as ‘masters’ in this era (McManus 2004).

4. Student teachers were termed ‘poor scholars’ in this era.

5. A legacy of this historical partnership is that in contemporary Ireland, over 90% of ‘public’ schools are owned and managed by religious bodies (Walsh 2023).

6. The State Department of Education has been named differently across the years: ‘Department of Education’ (1924–1997), ‘Department of Education and Science (DES)’ (1997–2010), ‘Department of Education and Skills (DES)’ (2010–2020) and ‘Department of Education’ (2020-present). The correct term for the era is used throughout this paper.