To a historian, the departure of the Vincentian fathers from St Patrick's teacher-training college in Drumcondra, Dublin, after 124 years is a landmark. For historian Dr Pauric Travers it is doubly so, as he is the college's first lay president, inaugurated on October 1st this year.

Travers comes to St Pat's via his local De La Salle school in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal; by way of UCD, where he completed a BA and an MA in history; and through Australia, where in 1978 he earned his PhD at the Australian National University, Canberra.

In 1981, he returned to Ireland and joined the staff of St Pat's as a history lecturer. Two years later, he was promoted to head of the history department and for the past three years he has been dean of the joint faculty of humanities in DCU and St Pat's.

Married to Mary Moore and with four children (Brian, 18, Ellen, 14, Cassie, 11, and Beth, 7), he has plenty of insight into primary education from the point of view of the parent and child.

As to the 10-year term which he is now beginning as the first lay head of St Pat's, he says: "As a historian I am wise enough to know that more things seem to change the more they stay the same. But, having said that, the college, like Irish society, is in transition. "I see myself partly as providing continuity with the college tradition, but also presiding over a period of change - as the college will inevitably change whether it likes it or not."

The big issue for the college is how it manages change, he adds. "There are a couple of things which condition the context in which we operate and one of the most immediate is the revised primary school curriculum. "We are obviously excited. Many of our staff members contributed to the revision. We see it as providing both a challenge and an opportunity for the college: we have to prepare the teachers who will deliver that new curriculum - that's the challenge.

"The opportunity is to use the implementation of curriculum change as a way of renewing and revising our own expertise and our relationship with schools. An accusation sometimes made against colleges generally, and teacher-training colleges in particular, is that we get out of touch with the classroom. The reform does provide us with an opportunity to renew our contacts with the teaching profession and the classroom."

Travers notes that there is also a review in progress of teacher education at primary and second level. While he says he is strongly committed to the present concurrent model of teacher training, he sees the value of a range of entry methods. Travers would like to see the present graduate-entry route - still viewed as an ad hoc response to need - become a permanent means of entry to the profession.

The two major colleges of education (Mary Immaculate in Limerick has recently appointed a lay president also) currently operate a three-year B.Ed, he notes, and this is one of the fundamental issues to be addressed by the review group. "We think a four-year B.Ed is essential given the addition of huge new areas to the curriculum - drama, SPHE, new technology, major issues in infant education and the integration of children with special needs. We can't keep adding without diminishing something else. "The colleges are strongly in favour of a four-year undergraduate and a two-year postgraduate route. If we're serious about the revised curriculum we need to bite the bullet and extend the programmes."

There is a huge crisis in teacher supply at present, Travers says; this year St Pat's took the largest-ever intake of first-years into the B.Ed programme. With 400 first-years, the total number of undergraduate B.Ed students stands at more than 900. The college has been linked with DCU since 1993 and offers a BA in humanities which reserves a quota of 25 per cent of first-year places for mature students. The link with DCU has also facilitated the development of postgraduate degrees at master's and PhD level. The first master's students will graduate this November.

"The increased numbers in the B.Ed are putting considerable pressure on our resources. On the other hand, the college accepts its responsibility to meet the real need to provide teachers. We have a Department of Education and a Minister who recognise the centrality of the primary education system."

He quotes Seamus Heaney who said, in a visit to the college last year, that he thought society could survive without universities, but it could not survive without colleges of education.

"I think there's a truth in that. What happens here is not an elite activity. It is something that affects the lives of every child. There's no bigger job or responsibility."

The college has had difficulty with resources, particularly staffing, over the past 25 years. For most of the 1980s and 1990s there were few appointments; the effect has inevitably been an ageing staff.

Travers is delighted that is changing rapidly. There have been more appointments over the past three months, he says, than at any other period in the history of the college.

"This will have the effect of invigorating the team and making us ready to meet the different challenges.

"One feature of the recent recruitment has been a strong emphasis on relevant and recent classroom experience. I think that does leave us well prepared to meet the period of curriculum reform that lies ahead.

"As well as stagnation in terms of staff appointments there has been no capital investment in any colleges of education for almost two decades. We have launched a draft physical development plan which has been sent to the Department of Education and the HEA, with a view to seeking approval for the costs involves, and those costs will be substantial. "State-of-the-art colleges of education do not come cheap."

The physical plan is part of an overall strategic plan which has been in preparation for the past year and which Travers hopes to launch after Christmas.

Travers says he is looking forward to his 10-year term of office. He says the fixed terms allows him to throw himself in, knowing that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

"I got lots of advice when I got the job, but the piece of advice I intend to follow came from a former colleague who said: `Enjoy it.' And I certainly will."