Education
MIC Hosts Major International Conference on Teacher Educational Policy
MIC Hosts Major International Conference on Teacher Educational Policy. Photo: Liam Burke Press 22
Mary Immaculate College, Limerick hosted the annual international conference of the Teacher Education Policy in Europe (TEPE) network from Thursday to Saturday, 18-20 May. TEPE is an academic network in the field of teacher education policy and this prestigious conference was attended by over one hundred delegates, who presented research from Canada, Denmark, Finland, Scotland, Britain, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the USA, and from Ireland.
The theme of the 2017 TEPE conference: ‘Education for All: Issues in Teacher Education’ examined how teacher education plays a pivotal role in enabling education systems to serve the needs of a diverse range of learners. The conference gave expression to the centrality of teachers in seeking to improve the learning and life chances of all in our schools while recognising the important roles others have to play in supporting such improvement. A Lively debate ensued throughout the conference which saw teacher educators, academic researchers, educators and policy makers interrogate the notion of ‘Education for All’ and in particular, the key role of teacher education and teacher educators therein.
Keynote speakers included Judith Warren Little, Carol Liu Professor of Education Policy, emerita, at the University of California, Berkeley and Professor Emeritus Áine Hyland, University College Cork, and Professor Brian Hudson, Professor of Education, University of Sussex. Speaking at the conference Professor Teresa O’Doherty, Dean of Education and host to the conference stated, ‘The Faculty of Education here is particularly well placed to address inclusion in education, given our range of programmes that attend to the continuum of learning from early childhood, through primary and post-post primary and onto adult education. Furthermore, the college’s teacher education programmes in Limerick and now also in MIC St Patrick’s Campus Thurles are grounded in an understanding that ‘Education for All’ is a central feature and long-established goal of all MIC programmes’.
As well as engagement in academic discussion delegates were delighted to see a display of hurling presented by the girls and boys of Patrickswell National School, as well as attending a performance of the MIC Community Choir, and they took full advantage of the location of the conference to sample the delights of Limerick City including a visit to the Cliffs of Moher.
For more information about TEPE Conference 2017 click here
To read more about Mary Immaculate College click here