The Reform Agenda in Initial Teacher Education in Ireland: Challenges and Expectations inherent in Imagining and Developing new Partnerships

Author(s):

Judith Harford(presenting / submitting)Teresa O'Doherty(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 12 B, Knowledge Regime and Performativity Discourses in Education

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-26

09:00-10:30

Room:

NM-C214

Chair:

Itxaso Tellado

Contribution

Within the last five years Teacher Education in Ireland has become a significant focus of policy change and development; influenced by a multiplicity of external and internal factors, the reform of the nature, content, duration, and structure of teacher provision and providers in recent years, provides an interesting case study of change in teacher education.

Following a long period of stability where the structure of teacher education had remained unchanged for many decades, the establishment of the Teaching Council, the statutory body with responsibility for regulating the teaching profession, in 2006, was a significant development on the education landscape. Traditionally universities and colleges exercised high levels of institutional autonomy in relation to the content and nature of teacher education programmes with little state intervention or regulation, and teacher education was almost invisible within the higher education landscape with a resultant low public profile. This situation has changed considerably within a short period of time, and teacher education has become the object of state intervention and regulation, at a period when the government is seeking to recapture economic prosperity and competitiveness.

This paper examines how international research and literature on good practice in initial teacher education has been reflected and refracted within a national policy. Influenced by Global Education Reform Movement, control of teacher education curriculum has shifted from the higher education institutions to the Teaching Council and government agencies. Reflecting the turn to practice within the literature, the role and place of school placement and partnership with schools is now a dominant feature within ITE programmes. In parallel, influenced by the need to achieve critical mass to support and maintain educational research, partnership between institutions has also been mandated, resulting in further loss of institutional autonomy for ITE providers. Within this paper partnership in Irish education is reviewed from two specific aspects:

The reconceptualised curriculum of ITE, where university- schools partnerships are now a mandated requirement for accreditation/recognition of programmes, and significant portions of ITE programmes must be school-based;
The revision of the infrastructure of ITE provision, where in a bid to reduce fragmentation, create a critical mass and thereby sustainable and research led and driven high quality ITE provision, traditionally autonomous institutions are currently engaged in a process of amalgamation, incorporation or creating strategic ‘partnerships’ and alliances.

The emphasis on and visibility of ITE on the policy landscape is a relatively recent development, resulting from the confluence of a number of factors described as ‘the perfect storm’ (Conway 2013). Ireland’s poor national performance in PISA, and influenced by economic regeneration and international competitiveness the Department of Education and Skills’ (DES) decision to extend the duration of ITE programmes to provide additional time for the development of teachers skills in teaching literacy and numeracy, allowed for the reconceptualisation of ITE (DES, 2011, July). Led by the then reform-oriented Minister for Education and Skills (Ruairí Quinn), supported by a vigorous Department, building on the foundation established by the Teaching Council, and facilitated by a period of austerity and financial rectitude, the time was ripe for the reform of long established processes and institutions.

This paper provides an overview of the recent reform agenda, delineates the various drivers, both national and international for the unprecedented scale and scope of reform, synthesising developments and identifying key challenges in the road towards partnership.

Method

The lexicon of partnership in teacher education in Ireland has developed and expanded over the last five years to reflect the increasingly complex array of relationships between institutions involved in initial teacher education; discussions of integration, incorporation, merger, alliance, and clustering predominate where teacher educators gather. In some instances these developments were initiated by the actors themselves, who have invested significant time in the management of the transitions, and form the basis for positive and enriching new contexts for teacher education; in others, the mandatory nature of the mergers and the inadequacy of the time and opportunity to establish a shared vision for teacher education, suggests that the process may be less than beneficial for all concerned. This paper examines the roll out of the recent policy agenda with its emphasis on partnership, through an analysis of key policy documents, both national and international, as well as data drawn from a national questionnaire of host teachers working with student teachers in schools.

Expected Outcomes

Building partnership in Irish teacher education has assumed new and challenging meanings in recent years; within the context of programmatic reforms, the extension of the relationship between initial teacher education providers and schools has been mandated by the Teaching Council. While all providers have built strong relationships with schools, the nature of the partnership now required by the Council will take time and resources to establish. Recognising all cooperating teachers in schools as ‘teacher educators’ and sharing ownership of the life-long ‘teacher education project’, will require a significant mind-shift on the part of teachers and teacher educators alike. Simultaneously, institutional partnership required of teacher education providers challenges the institutional autonomy and identity of teacher educators. Deconstructing a web of relationships and discontinuing institutions which have persisted for decades is not a simple undertaking. Merging institutions, irrespective of size, requires considerable planning and dialogue. Where these institutions have conflicting ethos or denominational identity, these reforms challenge the core of the institutions and the integration process requires depths of trust and confidence which require time and commitment from all involved. The impact of institutional change on the identity of teacher educators, and its influence on the nature, content and approach to teacher education across the state has yet to be seen. While undoubtedly these partnerships can provide new energies and opportunities for all the actors involved, and may enable a new and dynamic form of teacher education to develop, the policy of imposed ‘partnership’ within and between institutions, be that university-schools in relation to school placement, or university-higher education college, may have questionable outcomes for Irish education.

References

Conway, P.F. and R. Murphy (2013) A rising tide meets a perfect storm: New accountabilities in teaching and teacher education in Ireland. Irish Educational Studies. 32:1, 11-36. Department of Education and Skills [DES] 2011.Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and for Life: The national strategy to improve literacy and numeracy among children and young people 2011-2020. Dublin: DES. Harford, J. (2010) ‘Teacher education policy in Ireland and the challenges of the 21st century’, European Journal of Teacher Education, 33 (4). pp. 349-360. Harkin, S and Hazelkorn, E. (2015) ‘Institutional Mergers in Ireland’. In Curai, A. Georghiou, L., Harper, J.C., Pricopie, R. and Ergon-Polak, E. (Eds) (2015) Mergers and alliances in higher education: international practice and emerging opportunities. SpringerLink.com. pp 105-121. Hinfelaar, M. (2012) ‘Emerging higher education strategy in Ireland: amalgamate or perish’, Higher Education Management and Policy, Vol. 24 (10) pp 1- 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/17269822 Higher Education Authority. 2012. Towards a Future Higher Education Landscape. Dublin: The Higher Education Authority. Hyland, A. 2012. A Review of the Structure of Initial Teacher Education Provision in Ireland: Background Paper for the International Review Team, May 2012. Dublin: Department of Education and Skills. Long, F., Hall, K., Conway, P., & Murphy, R. (2012). Novice teachers as ‘invisible’ learners. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 18, pp. 619–636. Maandag, D. W., J. F. Deinum, A. W. H. Hofman, and J. Buitink. 2007. ‘Teacher Education in Schools: An International Comparison.’ European Journal of Teacher Education 30 (2): pp. 151– 173. OECD, 2011 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/32/50/46623978.pdf Robinson, Wendy (2008) ‘England and Wales’. In O’ Donoghue, T. and Whitehead, C. (eds). Teacher Education in the English-Speaking World: Past, Present and Future. USA; Information Age Publishing. pp. 45-60. Sahlberg, P., Munn, P. and Furlong, J. (2012) Report of the International Review Panel on the structure of initial teacher education provision in Ireland: Review conducted on behalf of the Department of Education and Skills. Dublin: Department of Education and Skills. Teaching Council (2011a) Policy on the Continuum of Teacher Education. Maynooth: Teaching Council. Teaching Council. (2011b) Initial teacher education: Criteria and guidelines for programme providers. Maynooth: Teaching Council Teaching Council (2013) Guidelines on School Placement. Maynooth: Teaching Council. Young, Ann-Marie, O'Neill, Amy and Mooney Simmie, Geraldine, (2015) Partnership in learning between university and school: evidence from a researcher-in-residence, Irish Educational Studies, 34:1, pp. 25-42.

Author Information

Judith Harford (presenting / submitting)

University College Dublin

Education

Dublin

Teresa O'Doherty (presenting)

Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland

Education

Limerick

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