Proposals will hurt teacher education

OPEN Letter to the Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn:

The education of primary school teachers is of paramount importance. In this context it is disappointing that new and highly controversial proposals from the Department of Education (Better Literacy and Numeracy for Children and Young People: A Draft National Plan to Improve Literacy and Numeracy in Schools, Nov 2010) and the Teaching Council (Policy on the Continuum of Teacher Education, June 2010 and Initial Teacher Education: Criteria and Guidelines for Programme Providers, Aug 2011) have received little attention in the public forum.

These documents, in effect, propose to eliminate the humanities from primary teacher education. If implemented, these proposals will have a detrimental impact on teacher education and will not be effective in addressing problems with literacy and numeracy at primary level.

Until now humanities disciplines (such as history, English, Irish, foreign languages, music, theology, philosophy, mathematics, etc.) have been integral to the formation of most primary teachers. This is about to end.

The study of the humanities by future teachers may very well be replaced with a narrower range of subjects primarily geared towards the development of methodological and pedagogical skills. A holistic education will at most be optional for the next generation of Irish primary teachers.

This is worrying. There is not a single trace of scientific evidence to support the view that the time dedicated to humanities in the curriculum of primary education teachers contributed to the decline in literacy and numeracy amongst pupils.

Dropping the humanities will, in fact, exacerbate the situation. Exposure to the humanities instils future primary teachers with a desire to go on learning, which, according to John Dewey, is “the most important attitude that can be formed”.

This goes to the heart of what an enthusiastic teacher is about. Eliminating the humanities disciplines from teacher education needlessly curtails the academic profile, professional options and horizons of students.

The proposed reform runs counter to the direction being taken by some of the most progressive systems of teacher education, and is at odds with international expertise.

For instance, the recent Donaldson Report on the Future of Teaching Education in Scotland deplores the “over-emphasis on technical and craft skills at the expense of broader and more academically challenging areas of study” and instead advocates teacher education degrees “which combine in-depth academic study in areas beyond education with professional studies and development.”

The Donaldson Report subscribes to a vision which sees teacher education, not as “training” but as a formation of enthusiastic teachers with broad intellectual pursuits. Irish children deserve teachers like this.

The proposed reforms move teacher education in Ireland in the opposite direction.

Signed by the following members of staff from Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick: Dr Tony Bonfield, Dr Helene Bradley, Dr Una Bromell, Dr Liam Chambers, Dr Patrick Connolly, Prof Eamonn Conway, Dr Maura Cronin, Dr Veronica Cullinan, Dr Eugene Duffy, Dr Sabine Egger, Dr Gerard Enright, Dr Carmel Finnan, Dr Marcus Free, Dr Loic Guyon, Dr Angela Hayes, Dr Gillian Jein, Dr Catherine Kavanagh, Dr Bernd Kreussler, Dr Caroline K. Healy, Dr Kathryn Laing, Dr Chris Lawn, Dr Tony Lyons, Prof Des McCafferty, Dr Deirdre McMahon, Mr Stephen Newman, Dr Ainéad Ní Mhuirthile, Dr Lesa Ní Mhunghaile, Ms Máire Ní Neachtain, Dr Dan O’Connell, Mr Diarmuid O’Driscoll, Dr David O’Grady, Dr Brendan O’Keeffe, Dr Liam O’Paircin, Dr Jessie Rogers, Dr Darach Sanfey, Dr Christiane Schönfeld, Dr Pat O’Sullivan, Dr Stephen Thornton, Dr Rik Van Nieuwenhove