The Irish language is an integral part of the primary school curriculum and teachers are required to be competent in addressing this element of the curriculum, which is based on a communicative approach and places particular emphasis on developing children’s listening and speaking skills.
My Department specifies minimum entry requirements in core subjects: Maths, English and Irish for entry to primary Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes to ensure that primary teachers have the capacity to lead in these significant areas of student learning. The current Leaving Certificate entry requirement is a H4 in Irish.
All candidates, including school leavers, mature students and university graduates in all public and private higher education institutions (HEIs) accredited to provide ITE must hold the required level of Leaving Certificate Irish or an approved equivalent for entry to Primary ITE programmes.
The entry requirements increased for concurrent programmes from September 2019, and for consecutive programmes from September 2021, in all public and private HEIs. Between 2019 and 2020, the Teaching Council reviewed its policy on standards for programmes of ITE in advance of the second cycle of review and accreditation of programmes of ITE.
Feedback from this process was incorporated into the revised standards: Céim: Standards for Initial Teacher Education (2020). All new and existing programmes of ITE are now aligned with Céim: Standards for Initial Teacher Education, for first year intakes. The accreditation cycle under Céim, for existing programmes of ITE is being conducted between 2021 and 2023.
Teachers in primary schools must be qualified to teach the range of primary school subjects to children aged 4 to 12 years. Accordingly, applicants must demonstrate to the Teaching Council’s satisfaction that they are competent to teach the Irish language and to teach the range of primary school curricular subjects through the medium of Irish before being granted full recognition to teach in mainstream classes in primary schools.
This is clearly recognised in the Teaching Council’s Standards documentation, in terms of the standards set out for Irish at primary, against which programmes of initial teacher education are accredited. The new Teaching Council standards state that through all primary level ITE programmes, student teachers’ confidence and competence, in Irish, including oral Irish, needs to be developed to a sufficient level to enable them to teach the Gaeilge primary curriculum.
In this case, the individual concerned does not meet the current minimum entry requirement in Irish based on their Leaving Certificate from 2014. However, it is open to the individual to repeat the Leaving Certificate Examination or pursue a course of study leading to one of the alternative qualifications in Irish as outlined in recently published Professional Master of Education (Primary Teaching) Entry Requirements and Procedures for 2023. Link: gov.ie - How to qualify as a primary teacher (www.gov.ie)
