How do we prepare teachers as global educators and balance national accreditation requirements with global challenges?

Teacher education in Ireland has undergone significant changes in the past decade and is now regulated by an independent statutory body, the Teaching Council of Ireland (O’Donoghue, Harford and O’Doherty, 2017). This body sets out the regulations pertaining to initial teacher education and accredits teacher education programmes across the state. Prior to the establishment of the council, teacher education providers were accredited by the Department of Education and Skills through a teachers’ registration section; although the level of specificity in terms of programme requirements was not as detailed as current requirements. In that context, teacher educators were afforded a high level of autonomy and significant programme variation existed across the many different teacher education colleges and universities. For example, the duration and timing of school placement experiences in both undergraduate concurrent teacher education programmes and postgraduate consecutive programmes varied significantly across the many providers and so too did their treatment of various aspects of education theory. This autonomy provided opportunities for a wide range of other student experiences reflecting institutional traditions and preferences including alternative school placements and some overseas placements where overseas study and work experience could be given equivalent academic credits in the home institution.