Madam, - Further to the Irish Times article ( "Hibernia's lucrative deal", October 7th), as current students on the graduate conversion course at St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra, we would like to express grave concern over the Higher Education Training Awards Council (HETAC) decision to give full recognition to Hibernia College's 18-month part-time on-line primary teacher training course.
We question Hibernia's claim that an 18-month part-time on-line course - the course consists of mainly online work, with some weekend and evening sessions in teacher centres - can possibly be equal to that of our intensive 18-month full-time taught post graduate course or to that of a 3 year full-time undergraduate course in Primary Education.
In light of last year's independent report, Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century, which recommends the extension of the undergraduate course to 4 years and the post-graduate course to 2 years, it is hard to envisage how many of the essential elements of teacher preparation including areas such as the performing arts (music and drama), physical education, and social, personal and health education (SPHE) can be taught effectively through such a short on-line program.
Recognition of such a short, part-time course raises questions not only about the effective implementation of the new primary school curriculum but also about the deprofessionalisation of primary school teaching.
The HETAC accreditation panel for Hibernia consisted of two individuals involved in IT and two individuals involved in education, one the director of an education centre in west Dublin. As the centre is now being used by Hibernia this surely means that the accreditation procedure was not a fully independent one.We call for a genuinely independent external review body, to be set up immediately to assess the quality of this short part-time course. An adequate review body would presumably also include some international experts in teacher education.
We also call on the Minister, Noel Dempsey, to activate the Teaching Council, as he was supposed to do by law in July 2003. We believe the Teaching Council would resist the deprofessionalisation of primary teaching.
We would like to add our support to the INTO in its call for the establishment of modular courses provided by the Irish colleges of education. However, with regard to the Hibernia course, is the INTO going to take a real stand on the issue or collude in the sellout and deprofessionalisation of their profession and the consequent effects that lowered standards will have on Irish children in future generations? - Yours, etc.,
NIALL SMYTH, ALISON PASSMORE, MICHELLE LALOR, SINEAD LEAHY, SINEAD KILLEEN, PJ O MEARA, SINEAD NI MHONGAIN, CAOIMHIN O GALLCHOIR' NICHOLA NÍ RAGHALLAIGH, (2nd Year Postgraduates students), St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin 7.