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CONFERENCE ON
OPENING ACCESS TO TEACHER EDUCATION AND PRACTICE FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIESDUBLIN CASTLE
15 MARCH 2012
AHEAD
COPYRIGHT
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AHEAD Conference – Dublin Castle – 15 March 20121
AHEAD: Opening access to teacher education and practice for students with disabilities: Conference 15th March 2012:
ANN HEELAN: Good morning everybody.
Before we get started I just want to ask Dublin Castle to play the health and safety video, it's a mandatory requirement.
SAFETY VIDEO: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Dublin Ireland and at its heart Dublin Castle, a seat of government for over 700 years, you are in one of the most exciting historical locations in Ireland today.
Take time to tour around the castle, see Ireland's past in pride of place and memory, hear stories locked into its walls and enjoy the breath taking art, furniture and decor.
Dublin Castle welcomes you today.
This is An Caislean conference room; please take a few moments to observe the following safety procedures. We have three emergency exits. Exit signs are illuminated at all times. Please check now the exit nearest you, bearing in mind it may be behind you.
Toilets and washrooms are outside the main entrance to the room.
In the event of an emergency you will be informed and you will be asked to proceed out of the exit nearest you, to move upstairs and assemble here, in the upper courtyard.
As a courtesy to other attendees you are requested to switch off all mobile phones at this time.
In keeping with legislation, Dublin Castle is a nonsmoking building. You are therefore requested not to smoke at any time while inside the building.
Those using headsets are requested to return them to where you found them when you are finished.
Once again, please turn off all mobile phones now.
Thank you for your attention and enjoy your time at Dublin Castle.
ANN HEELAN: Well ladies and gentlemen, you are all very welcome here to the AHEAD conference on opening access to students with disability to teacher education.
I don't think you will have time to see the lovely rooms in the castle unfortunately because you will be far too busy here today!
I don't need to tell anybody in this room what a wonderful profession teaching is. It is of great value, it is respected and it was one of those professional roles that has a really a power to transform people's lives.
Every year we get an increasing, we in AHEAD get an increasing number of inquiries at the better options and higher options fairs from young people with disabilities who have aspirations to be teachers and they are asking us, can we be teachers? What do we need to do?
Some of these students there is not a huge amount of them, they wouldn't stretch from here to Trinity College, but they would stretch around the corner, and each year the number of these students as they come through second level is increasing.
Some of them stand out, I remember last year in particular a young girl who was an Irish Sign Language user who had a real passion to become a teacher, it's the only thing she wanted to do. She felt that she could make a real difference to the quality of education for deaf children down the road, when she got qualified.
But unfortunately, she was told really that at the moment she couldn't actually become a teacher in Ireland. Unfortunately, them's the rules!
Other barriers that maybe affect students with disabilities in becoming teachers are well-documented public attitudes. There is a world health report out this year along with a National Disability Authority report on public attitudes in Ireland. And I must admit I was surprised to see that the number of parents who are asked about whether they wanted to include students with disabilities in the classroom, the number of parents who had a problem with that has increased.
So I think we have to take on board the fact that public attitudes can be barriers for students with disabilities in entry to any profession, and also that includes teaching.
Why is this? Because it isn't really based on the ability of people with disabilities. It's actually based on assumptions, assumptions that we all make about people to get through every day. That we don't have to go back to the basics and think everything through.
They say that 95% of our perception of the world is actually in the subconscious. We see people in police uniforms and assume they are police.
But we also make assumptions about people with disabilities. We can assume for example that they need care, or that they might make problems for us or indeed that they might not be quite fit for the job. And they might not be fit for the demands of any particular job. These assumptions are very sophisticated machines that drive our behaviour and our decisions.
And if we make decisions about people with disabilities based on these assumptions they can have a very big impact on their lives. Because, like every solution to a problem that is simple and straightforward, assumptions are also simple and straightforward, and very often wrong.
But today is really about alerting professionals and other people, when they are dealing with people with disability to step back from these assumptions and to reassess what they think about people with disabilities, and in particular in the context of today, in their role as teachers.
We want people to realise that people with disabilities are just as capable as the next of doing a demanding job. I think this would move Ireland further forward in terms of equality, and more to the point, it will make a big difference to those young people who want to become teachers.
AHEAD has been working over the past few months with leaders in the community out there, people within the IOA, within the National Access Office, within the teacher training colleges themselves, St.Pat's, Mary I, with the Equality Authority and with the Centre for Deaf Studies and we're talking to the leaders in those areas who understand what being inclusive is all about, and who also understand that it would be good for teacher education and furthermore, that it's the right thing to do.
And as part of those conversations we've realised that in fact there are a lot of things happening out there, a lot of very positive initiatives, but we're not it's only by going out and talking to people you realise they are happening. So part of the purpose of today is to bring them all into the room and actually see what is happening out there, what developments are taking place, and then also to maybe look at what other reforms need to happen to accelerate the pace of change, so that we can say yes, to those students in the future.
I suppose like the higher Ireland ads, if we want different results we can't keep doing the same things.
So on that note I'm going to ask another very important leader in this context, Minister Ruairi Quinn, to address the conference, unfortunately not in person, but remotely, we have him on DVD, we did manage to capture him, he is just going to address us for a few minutes and we are delighted to have him.
So we'll welcome you needn't clap him because he can't hear you!
But Minister Ruairi Quinn.
MINISTER QUINN: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to participate in today's conference on access to teacher training. The conference agenda will no doubt stimulate much thought and discussion. I hope that delegates will leave full of ideas on how we can build on progress that has been made to date in providing access to teacher training for people with disabilities.
I know that AHEAD is passionate about and committed to, equality of outcomes for people with disabilities. I commend Ann Heelan and her team for their work on this issue and in preparing today's conference.
It is worth reflecting on some of the major policy and funding developments implemented over the past two years to achieve equity of access for higher education generally for people with disabilities.
As you probably know these include: The establishment in the early 1990s by the Department of Education for the fund for students with disabilities. The introduction around the same time of the targeted initiatives scheme, which provided dedicated funding for institutions to develop access and disability structures and services. The introduction of key legislation, particularly the Equal Status Acts, requiring educational institutions to provide reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities. The establishment of my department, of a National Access Office in 2003. And, in 2008, the development by AHEAD of good practice guidelines for providers of supports and services for students with disabilities and the 2009 charter for inclusive teaching and learning.
I believe that it is important that students with disabilities are supported during their higher education studies. I am very pleased to note that last year, almost 6,100 students with disabilities were supported from the fund for students with disabilities. This is over 11 times the number of students supported back in 2000.
Last year, 6.4% of new entrants to higher education indicated that they had one or more disabilities. Previous estimates by AHEAD in the early 1990s indicated that participation by students with disabilities at that time was less than 1%. This clearly shows that much progress has been made over the past two decades.
I recognise that increasing access to teacher training for those with disabilities is an area, which needs further work. Data indicate that just 2% of entrants to teacher training colleges have a disability, compared to a 6% average across higher education generally. Today represents a very useful opportunity for an open discussion on barriers to accessing teacher education and the practical steps that might be taken to address these. I fully agree that teachers with disabilities can bring huge benefits to the education of all children. And in particular, they can act as role models and help to establish expectations for those with similar disabilities.
It is important to state that the initial teacher education provides welcome applications from prospective students from diverse backgrounds, including applicants with disabilities. The providers seek to enable all students to realise their potential as professional educators by offering a wide range of supports and reasonable accommodations. Many post primary ITE providers already participate in the Disability Access Route to Education, known as the DARE scheme.
The participation of students with disabilities in primary teacher education has been a focus of discussions between my department and the conference of heads of Irish colleges of education in recent years. These resulted in the colleges having discussions with the operators of the DARE scheme with a view to joining the scheme, as well aspirating a reduced points admission route for applicants with disabilities. I understand that agreement in principle has been reached and the colleges will work to finalise the details as efficiently as possible. In doing so, they will be careful to balance the spirit of inclusiveness with the high standards and duty of care required of educators of children and young people.
The significance of teacher quality is well supported by research, which indicates that most important factors in positively influencing students’ outcomes are the quality of teachers and teaching. Students and the ITE colleges have to be confident that, with reasonable accommodations, there is the potential to successfully complete what is a demanding course, including teaching practice.
I commend the primary colleges of education on this development, which should increase access to initial primary teacher education. I also want to acknowledge the Teaching Council's role in this process. The Council has also advanced the agenda for the further inclusion of special education needs within teacher education generally.
There are also improvements in the area of access for deaf students to primary level initial teacher education and I look forward to receiving more definite proposals on that matter in due course.
I would like to commend AHEAD for its ongoing commitment to progressing this issue. I will be very interested in the outcome of your deliberations and I wish you every success with the conference today.
Thank you very much indeed. And good luck.
ANN HEELAN: In good educational style he has given us homework to do! We must give him back our deliberations.
So on that note I'm now going to welcome our keynote speaker, DrAnn Lodge, director of the Church of Ireland teacher education college. She is going to address us. Thank you Ann.
DRLODGE: Good morning everybody.
I'd like to welcome you all here very warmly and I would also like to thank the committee for extending the invitation to me to undertake the keynote address but I'd likely like to single out DrMichael Shevlin my colleague and friend who volunteered me to do this in his absence and he knows where he is sitting.
On a serious note, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to present this paper when I figured out how I could manage my timetable around it, because it's given me an opportunity to reflect on the current developments that the Minister has eluded to there, in the context of the serious revisions that are being under gone at the moment for the B Ed programme and higher diploma for initial teacher education, but also gave me a chance to think about, both external structural issues that have prevented the level of equality of access that we might have desired, along with some of the internal cultural issues that may similarly have prevented us creating as great a climate of equality as we might desire.
Now as the Minister noted, there have been significant increases in the number of students taking part in higher education institutions in the various programmes there, who have disabilities. He noted that overall there were approximately 6% of all higher education students have disabilities and there is a very there is a clear recognition that some courses and programmes of study are more accessible than others, and there have been particular barriers in the case of primary teacher education.
I just want to note some of the external barriers first. That we have had to deal with the reality that the 1965 rules for national schools, as laid down by the Minister and the department, required not only that people would be certified medically fit to practice, on entry to the profession, but they couldn't actually gain access to teacher education programmes themselves without also being deemed medically fit to practice. And that did create a very, very clear structural barrier.
Now over the last decade the department, and the colleges of education, have considered the issue of access by candidates with disabilities to teacher education.
There has been lengthy discussion. And everybody recognised there were a set of complexities involved in all of this. A lot of focus was given to the duty of care of teachers of young children in a school setting.
There were also concerns expressed by the colleges about our duty of care to our students and the fact that in some way we were obliged to ensure they can find a job on exit. And on top of that, the colleges also recognise that it was actually outside our remit to change regulations and the rules for national schools as laid down by the Minister.
However, that regulation we have been informed has now been removed, so over the course of this academic year, the colleges have been in intense discussion to look at how we would access the DARE programme and agreed we should enter the programme from 2013, but at the same time we have been engaged in this discussion work, we have also been in a position whereby we have had to draft very serious changes to our college programmes themselves, and that has provided a real opportunity to think about the place of inclusive education within teacher education itself.
But in looking at all of that, we have been concerned about finding ways in which we can ensure that those who access programmes of teacher education are given adequate supports and accommodations to enable them to gain from the programme, to enable them to participate fully in the programme.
And so, we have been looking at all of the issues that were gathered with the medical form to see what kind of information do we actually need to ensure that somebody can enter the programme so that we can accommodate and include them appropriately?