Minister Bruton launches new Irish-medium Teacher Education Programmes

Action to ensure adequate supply of Irish medium teachers.

The Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton TD, today announced two new Irish-medium teacher education programmes. The new programmes will deliver up to 60 new places for teacher education through Irish annually. These new places are in addition to the 380 extra places on initial teacher education courses announced recently.

Today’s announcement fulfils a key commitment in the Policy on Gaeltacht Education, which was launched by the Minister in 2016 and is the first Gaeltacht specific education policy in the history of the state. The new places are an important measure to ensure Irish medium schools in both Gaeltacht and non-Gaeltacht areas have an adequate supply of Irish medium teachers.

The two new Irish-medium teacher education programmes represent an investment of up to almost €7m, depending on uptake and will be delivered by the Marino Institute of Education and Mary Immaculate College. Marino Institute of Education will deliver a 4-year Irish-medium Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) for primary teachers commencing in 2019 and Mary Immaculate College will run an Irish-medium Masters in Education (M.Ed.) for primary and post-primary teachers, including principals, commencing in 2018.

Launching the programmes today, Minister Bruton said:

“Today’s announcement fulfils a key commitment in the Policy on Gaeltacht Education, the first policy of its kind and our plan to promote excellence in Irish medium teaching in both the Gaeltacht and Irish medium schools."

“Teachers and school leaders are the most important factor in ensuring a child has a positive outcome from school. I want to ensure that our Irish medium schools have sufficient numbers of adequately qualified teachers to deliver an excellent education programme through Irish and these new courses are an important step to ensure this.”

Both contracts were awarded following a comprehensive procurement process, managed by the OGP in conjunction with the Department of Education and Skills. The Minister also thanked the Office of Government Procurement for their support with the process.

ENDS

Notes to the Editor:

The Policy on Gaeltacht Education 2017-2022 was published in October 2016. The overarching goal of the Policy is to ensure the provision of high quality Irish-medium education in Gaeltacht schools to support the use of Irish as the main language of Gaeltacht communities. The Policy actions span the whole spectrum of education from early years to third level.

A key pillar of the Policy is improving the quality of teaching through Irish.

A budget of €2.3m has been provided to cover the cost of the implementation of Policy measures in 2018, which is more than double the budget provided in 2017.