Fine Gael TD for County Limerick Patrick O’Donovan, has welcomed the announcement by the Minister for the Education and Skills that he is going to proceed with the recommendations of an international panel of experts on the structures needed to provide Initial Teacher Education.
“There are currently 19 state funded providers of Initial Teacher Education (and three non-state funded) offering more than 40 courses in primary and post-primary teaching. Under the new recommendations there will now be a smaller number of centres for Initial Teacher Education, but that they will offer teacher education across multiple sectors from early childhood to primary, to post primary to adult education”.
“These recommendations will effectively designate Limerick as a Centre of Excellence for Teacher Education, with the Mary Immaculate College, the University of Limerick and Limerick Institute of Technology forming one integrated hub. As a alumni of Mary Immaculate College and former teacher this is great news for Limerick and the Mid-West region”.
“These centres for teacher education will possess a critical mass in terms of research capacity which is not always possible in smaller institutions. The new configurations will mean strong research bases will be cemented in each centre”.
“It is now important that the Higher Education Authority who is in charge of drawing up an implementation plan for these recommendations ensures that meaningful discussions take place between the different college authorities, personnel, students and representative bodies who would have an interest on the location or relocation of the different programmes”.