Teacher Education in Ireland at Primary Level

Abstract

Summary Since 1974 the professional preparation of primary school teachers in Ireland has been catered for in the context of a three‐year university degree. The present paper tries to show how one college attempted to cater for the difficult and dangerous transition involved in making this provision against a background of having spent the previous 75 years preparing teachers in a non‐university context. While the general subject herein examined is undoubtedly multi‐faceted, the main emphasis in the paper will be upon the particular steps taken to ensure the retention of as reasonable an emphasis as possible on the acquisition of practical teaching skills, while at the same time making adequate provision for the higher level of academic work which involvement with the university necessarily presupposes. Very particularly the college was conscious of the danger which had attended the attempts of many institutions in other countries in seeking to effect the transition in question: namely, that the tradition...