The recent front-page piece by Andy Pollak, Education Correspondent (Irish Times, April 13th) made interesting reading for anyone with even a passing interest in Irish teacher-training. Much of it was poorly informed.

The piece suggests the Minister for Education and Science, Mr Martin, is "known to be concerned at the appropriateness of some of the teacher-training currently carried out in universities and training colleges". That may be so.

No doubt the Minister correctly thinks some initial teacher-training practices need reconsideration: there is always room for improvement in a complex activity like preparing the teachers of the future; and we are in an age of great changes in education generally.

Presumably that is why Mr Martin is now putting in place the long-awaited review of teacher-training - a move UCD welcomes. But the piece then goes on to claim (without attributing a source) that "teaching methods as taught in the colleges has changed relatively little in 30 years" and secondary training courses at UCD and TCD are seen as outdated and "in need of significant overhaul".

One can only speculate on just how little whoever is behind these comments could actually know about contemporary teacher education in this country and in particular about the courses singled out for specific mention.

It is discouraging, to say the least, that a respected Education Correspondent of a reputable newspaper did not even bother to check the reality with those working in the area before writing his piece. And it is appalling that people in a position to influence seriously the work we do in teacher education in Ireland should be so unaware of the strengths of our system here or of just how much damage "reforms" based on such ill-informed claims have done to teacher education in the UK and elsewhere.

Both Mr Pollak and his sources appear unaware of the considerable ongoing effort that those of us involved in teacher education at UCD - and colleagues elsewhere in the sector - put into modernising our courses.

Did they know, for example, that current UCD H.Dip.Ed. students have, as part of their training course, lectures and workshops on the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme, the Leaving Certificate Applied and transition year programme? And that these are all taught by National Support Team members for the development in question?

Or that the course includes inputs on the new Schools IT 2000 initiative and Civic Social and Political Education? That several of the subject lecturers on our (outdated?) method courses contribute in a variety of ways to the development of the new syllabuses at Junior and Leaving Cert level?

Or that the H.Dip.Ed. course comprises occasional inputs on pastoral care, development education, teachers' responsibilities in current law, job-search skills for the late 1990s, and so on?

These illustrations are offered simply to show we are quite aware of what is needed to run an "overhauled" course and are constantly updating our practice. The UCD H.Dip.Ed. experience reflects the realities of a teacher education system which may embrace change with more caution than some would like, but which remains - as the OECD Review of Irish Education (1991) noted - among the best in Europe.

Unfortunately for those of us who work in the area, the public image of teacher education put about by the kind of "cheap shot" commentary made by Mr Pollak in ignorance of such developments is extremely unhelpful.

In fairness, it must be noted the piece is not without some value and legitimacy. For one thing it lets us know the long-promised review of teacher training is finally about to start. For another it provides the first public indication of some of the likely subjects of that review.

Moreover, in one particular, Mr Pollak is totally correct. Education in Ireland is in the grip of a series of changes that are in many respects unparalleled in the State's history and, certainly, teacher education needs to change in relation to these new realities. What he has overlooked is that it is changing.

Of course meaningful change has to reach beyond the superficiality of the latest press release or the latest Big Policy Thing. It takes hard work and time to nurture and culture such change. This is why, for several years now, a process of deep, quiet and determined root-and-branch reformulation has been taking place within the UCD H.Dip.Ed.

A number of important outcomes of this process - some of them noted above - are already in place, more will be ready for the next H.Dip.Ed. intake and others are still under development. But we can only progress as rapidly as it is safe to do without jeopardising the status and integrity of our diploma which is, after all, a university-validated, internationally recognised teaching qualification. The pity is this measured, steady change does not attract the kind of newspaper coverage that the "Shakeup for Teacher Training" kind seems to do.

Much of the direction in which education reform is moving in the Republic has been at the heart of debate and action since the publication of Education for a Changing World (the 1992 Green Paper). In all of this, the main education partners - including the teacher-training institutions - have played an important and constructive role. There are no reasons why this cannot continue.

If the Minister is wholehearted in his intention to help reconstitute teacher education for the new millennium, there are many of us working in the area who will truly welcome that commitment. That includes those who teach in the H.Dip.Ed. at UCD.

Nothing in this article is to deny that there are many difficult and controversial questions facing teacher educators in contemporary Ireland, and which the upcoming Review of Teacher Training will need to address.

For instance, our H.Dip.Ed. course is extremely cost effective by any standards. But some of the possible changes being mentioned (such as lengthening the course to 18 months) would require funding of a much more generous scale than currently.

At UCD we would welcome this move but could only support it if it is financed on a realistic scale. Clearly, it is not just the primary training colleges that need capital to support teacher education, and radical reform of their per capita funding.

Another significant challenge facing the review body centres upon formalising the role of second-level sector schools in initial teacher education if they wish to formalise that role. How can schools' valued contribution to initial teacher-training best be supported in any moves towards greater formal involvement in teacher-training? At UCD we favour a full education partnership route for pre-service teacher education but while new partnerships in the training of our teachers remain the ideal, these cannot be pursued under existing conditions.

How, then, will this crucial aspect of the training arrangement reform for second-level teachers be addressed? Where will the massive resources and cash come from that are necessary to make partnership work? Will we find ourselves rushing headlong into the same ill-considered "reforms" that have destroyed teacher education elsewhere?

Britain, for example, has moved much of its teacher-training out of the university sphere in recent years, and teacher shortages in England and Wales are now at an all-time high, with teacher morale at its lowest ever.

At UCD we are currently working our way through these and many other questions of fundamental importance to teacher-training in Ireland in the early part of the new millennium. Our deliberations are changing substantially the nature and detail of the teacher education we offer through our higher diploma and our other teacher education programmes.

The collective confidence and ability to act on such judgments do not suggest to me a course that is particularly "out of date" or "in need of significant overhaul". Rather, they suggest a course which is the product of vision and autonomy (as an integral part of a large, forward-looking university), of close links with a large constituency of schools in the second-level sector, and a shared belief in the true value of university involvement in the professionalisation of teachers and teaching; in short, a relevant and effective course deserving better than Mr Pollak's gratuitous dismissal.

Hopefully, the quality of guidance and advice offered to the Minister by those he appoints to review teacher education arrangements in this State will be of a sounder, more robust and more informed nature than that which has recently found its way into print in relation to his decision to officially set the process in motion.

Conor Galvin Ph.D. is a lecturer in education and director of the Higher Diploma in Education Programme at University College Dublin.