Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 17 Dec 2003

Vol. 577 No. 4

Written Answers. - Teacher Training Colleges.

Olwyn Enright

Ceist:

194 Ms Enright asked the Minister for Education and Science if the decision to halve the intake of new students in the colleges of education will be overturned in view of the large numbers of applications for the graduate diploma in education at those colleges; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31575/03]

Minister for Education and Science (Mr. N. Dempsey)

It is not the case that the intake of students to the colleges of education for the academic year 2003-04 has been halved. The colleges of education provide primary teacher training courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. The approved intake to the B.Ed. course has been 1,000 for the past number of years and this has not changed. The 18 month full-time postgraduate course was first provided in four of the colleges of education in the 1995-96 academic year as a response to a shortage in the supply of trained primary teachers and has been repeated on a number of occasions since then. The most recent course commenced in February of this year and it has been decided that, based on the continuing teacher shortage, a further course will commence early in 2004.

The intake to the postgraduate courses since their introduction is as follows:

Academic year	Intake
1995/96	180
1996/97	–
1997/98	150
1998/99	280
1999/00	280
2000/01	280
2001/02	461
2002/03	460
2003/04	280

In the past two years, the intake to the postgraduate course was at an all-time high in an effort to improve teacher supply and reduce the number of untrained teachers in the system.

Based on current assessment of needs, it has been decided that a further postgraduate course should be provided in 2004 but that the number of places to be made available should revert to 280 as in previous years.