On behalf of the Conference of Heads of Irish Colleges of Education, I welcome the opportunity to make a presentation on e-learning and initial teacher education. This is an area of considerable public interest and we congratulate the committee on its initiative in organising this session. It is a matter of regret that there was not an opportunity for consultation and debate on the issue before rather than after significant decisions were made. It is also a matter of regret that Hibernia was unable to provide a representative for this morning's session.
It may be useful to provide some background information about the Conference of Heads of Irish Colleges of Education, CHOICE, which represents five primary teacher education colleges, namely, Church of Ireland College, Rathmines, Froebel College, Blackrock, Coláiste Mhuire, Marino, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, and St Patrick's College, Drumcondra. It also represents St. Mary's University College, Belfast, and three second level teacher education colleges.
Individually and collectively, we offer a range of courses in the area of education ranging from initial teacher education to continuing professional development courses for teachers, with awards including the BEd degree, graduate certificates and diplomas, MEd degree and doctoral degrees. Irish children in schools up and down the country are taught by teachers educated in our colleges. The country has some 25,000 primary teachers, approximately 24,000 of whom have been educated in our primary education colleges.
Faced by the major increase in demand for teachers over the past number of years, the colleges have increased their output significantly. In 1999, the primary colleges of education produced 500 teachers. This year, the figure is close to 1,500. The colleges now produce five times as many teachers as they did a decade ago. This has been achieved without any significant capital investment. The colleges are committed to meeting agreed needs for teacher supply in a timely and flexible fashion consistent with the maintenance of the highest standards.
It is widely acknowledged that Ireland is fortunate in the high quality of its teachers. This is unusual internationally and cannot be taken for granted. In responding flexibly and innovatively to new challenges, it is important that nothing is done to endanger that position. This is fundamental to the social and economic well-being of the country. When an e-learning course was mooted for teacher education in Scotland, policy makers decided that only a closely monitored pilot project with a limited intake should be approved.
On 1 August 2003, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Noel Dempsey, announced that he was granting recognition to a new primary teacher training course accredited by the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, HETAC, and delivered by a private commercial company, Hibernia College. The colleges of education, initially privately and then publicly, expressed serious concerns at this development. It was, and still is our view, that this poses a significant threat to the quality of teacher education, to the professional status of teaching and, ultimately, to the well-being of Irish primary school children. We have called for the pausing of further intakes into this course pending a full review, and we do so again today. Such a step would be prudent and fair to all concerned, not least children in schools. That position has been supported by a unanimous resolution passed at the INTO congress last Easter in Tralee.
We should stress that our reservations do not stem from any lack of enthusiasm for innovation and change. Over the past decade, the teacher education colleges have changed more rapidly than any area in the education system. Our staff have been in the vanguard of both curriculum reform in general and the development and dissemination of new innovative approaches to the integration of information and communication technologies in education in particular. We have taken a leading role in such pioneering projects as Teachnet and Empowering Minds in collaboration with Media Lab Europe. We promote extensive use of information and communications technologies within our existing teacher education programmes, and we deliver a growing number of professional development courses for teachers using distance education and e-learning. We are committed to extending such provision as part of the continuing professional development of teachers.
We have no reservations about e-learning as such. It is an enormously valuable tool. What is at issue is how and when it should be used and by whom. We have profound reservations about the appropriateness of on-line delivery for initial teacher education, which of necessity undermines teacher formation which has been at the heart of the Irish approach to teacher education.
The colleges are committed to a model of teacher formation which allows future teachers to come into a third level community of learning where they grow and develop as people and as teachers. Teaching is a caring profession. The interpersonal dimension is vital. Every parent understands instinctively that it is the interpersonal relationship between pupil and teacher that is crucial to the learning experience. Student teachers should be helped to grow in their understanding of children and of child psychology as well as in their understanding of their professional role as part of a vibrant community of students and staff. We question whether this is possible where the main form of delivery is on-line. We also question the extent to which it is possible to ensure student teachers have acquired the minimum competencies necessary to teach areas such as physical education, PE, art and language learning, especially with regard to Irish.
We also have serious concerns in other areas, including the accreditation process and the erosion of quality and standards. We have made a detailed submission to the Department of Education and Science on these matters and propose to summarise them briefly here. The OECD has concluded in a review of e-learning that the central challenge is the protection of standards and that this can be difficult to achieve without the involvement of well-established providers.
I wish to raise some issues concerning the policy on teacher education. The accreditation of the Hibernia programme by HETAC is a radical departure from previous practice. The report, Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century, which was prepared by an expert and representative review body in 2002 and which made wide-ranging recommendations in regard to upgrading teacher education, did not make any recommendations on and does not give any support for the introduction of a part-time or on-line programme for initial teacher education.
It is misleading to view this new on-line course as a necessary response to a shortage of teachers. Hibernia's enrolment has led to a curtailment of the intake to the colleges of education on the postgraduate conversion programme. The colleges are satisfied that they can meet the demand for additional teachers and have repeatedly offered to enter into discussions with the Department on alternative models of teacher education were such requested, for example, modular courses.
Hibernia was granted approval under Section 21(4) of the Qualifications (Education and Training) Act 1999. We have asked the Department of Education and Science to review the manner in which the Act has been applied in this instance, with a view to ascertaining whether this is an appropriate section under which such a programme should be validated. We have sought to raise directly with HETAC concerns regarding its responsibilities. The assessment panel established by HETAC did not include an independent international expert in the area of third level teacher education. This absence is striking. The four-person panel was made up of a programme validation expert, an expert in e-learning, a teacher and a retired teacher.
In its programme validation submission to HETAC, Hibernia proposed that it be allowed an intake of 100 in year one and a further intake of 100 in year two. Presumably, HETAC made its decisions on Hibernia's capacity to deliver on the basis of this level of intake. However, this proposal has already been breached and no regulation would seem to apply to Hibernia's enrolment. For a private sector company with no prior experience in the delivery of any teacher education programme to be given the freedom to take in unrestricted numbers in its initial years borders on the reckless. It is difficult to reconcile this with the tight control maintained by the Department over the intake to the public sector colleges of teacher education.
The panel of assessors appointed on behalf of HETAC reported that a large number of students on the course would already be teaching in primary schools and that this would facilitate the modules in teaching methodologies, particularly teaching practice. They went on to recommend to HETAC that "all students in the initial cohort of students recruited to the programme would be involved in primary education". We understand that this recommendation has not been adhered to.
In its programme validation submission to HETAC, Hibernia listed the lecturing expertise available for the programme. Claims that those associated with the programme are leaders in the field of teacher education are not substantiated. Hibernia also highlighted the role played by its academic committee, consisting "of experienced academics and practitioners'' whose function was "to oversee the development of the programme". Of the nine persons listed as members of the academic committee, at least one third later denied involvement.
We note also that the Higher Education Authority has issued a public statement drawing attention to the factually incorrect claims made by Hibernia College in the mission statement which Hibernia submitted to HETAC. A number of pages of Hibernia's programme validation submission relate to the primary curriculum support programme of the Department of Education and Science, DES, and to delivery of methodological aspects of Hibernia's programme by primary curriculum support programme, PCSP, staff. The appendix to that report lists "PCSP Tutors" in place of the names of lecturers-tutors responsible for teaching methodologies. The panel of assessors appointed on behalf of HETAC concluded that this involvement by PCSP staff in the delivery of the programme was "considered essential to its success". We have been assured by the DES that the PCSP has no formal involvement with Hibernia and that statements to the contrary are incorrect.
We have also expressed concerns in relation to entry requirements, selection procedures, delivery through a number of publicly funded education centres and employment of students in schools while pursuing their course. We believe that the introduction of a part-time programme, which in the space of 18 months will grant a qualification similar to that which is granted by the colleges for full-time study of the same duration, necessarily represents a significant dilution of standards. Whereas the recent expert review of teacher education recommended increasing the duration of teacher training programmes, in this case it is now proposed to cut them. We see this development as an attack on the professional status of teachers and as a first move towards de-professionalising teaching.
In our view, the programme content submitted for validation by Hibernia was weak and deficient in numerous respects, not least its coverage of the knowledge base of teachers and the content of programmes of teacher education. We have drawn attention to programme weakness in areas, including courses in classroom management, teaching studies, assessment and evaluation and the total reliance on the primary curriculum 1999 as the basis for the teaching methodologies. It seems extraordinary that the programme was given accreditation without any information on course content in the areas listed in our submission. It would appear that the courses in some of these areas have not yet been written and that course writers are only now being recruited. We have also expressed concern about the lack of library support for the programme.
The provision of teacher education in the colleges of education takes place in a socially interactive academic environment which promotes advances in knowledge, research and professional understanding and which actively reaches out to society, both locally and nationally, and has particular regard for the disadvantaged. We believe that the accreditation granted to Hibernia was based on incomplete and, in some cases, misleading information. We repeat our call for a pause in its intake pending a full review.