Strategy for evidence-informed decision making, policy and practice 2024-2026

Introduction

The Teaching Council is the regulator of the teaching profession in Ireland. Our role is to protect the public by promoting and regulating professional standards in teaching.

We fulfill that role by carrying out functions as follows:

• Maintaining a register of qualified and vetted teachers in Ireland. This ensures that teachers meet the necessary qualification, standards, competencies, and character requirements for registration.
• Establishing and upholding high standards for teachers in Ireland. The Council establishes standards across the entire career span for teachers including guidelines and codes related to their professional conduct, knowledge, skill, and competence.
• Ensuring the quality of initial teacher education programmes provided by higher education institutions in Ireland. This includes review and accreditation processes to maintain high standards of initial teacher education, which in turn contributes to the quality of teaching and learning in the country.
• Establishing standards to guide and support induction processes that are required on a statutory basis and promoting lifelong learning for registered teachers. This sets systematic benchmarks supporting the early stages of teachers’ career and encourages continuing professional learning throughout their careers.
• Commissioning and conducting research, using data and evidence to inform decision making and policy development. This provides evidence-based recommendations and contributes to discussions on educational policies, practices, and reforms, with the intention of ensuring high standards in the teaching profession.

Research, while named explicitly as one of the above functions, is also an enabler of all our other functions, since it provides the evidence needed to underpin all our work. Moreover, it helps us to fulfill our commitment to being a listening and learning organisation.

This strategy has been developed to guide our approach to research.

Developing this strategy

This strategy has been developed following a review of the previous strategy, and further to the following objective in our Strategic Plan (2022-2027):

“Review the Council’s research strategy, ensuring alignment with the Department of Education and its agencies and the growth of systemic connections”.

That review was informed by:

a) An internal review of the impact of the previous research strategy

b) An external review of our Researchers in Residence Scheme

c) A desk-based review of pertinent literature, and of policy and practice in comparable regulatory bodies.

Underpinning principles

In preparing this strategy, the Teaching Council identified the following principles which will underpin its approach to research:

1. Strategic alignment: We will ensure our approach to research is aligned with our statutory responsibilities, as reflected in the goals and objectives in our Strategic Plan 2022 to 2027.
2. Capacity-building: We will ensure that our in-house research function has capacity to lead the implementation of this strategy, in light of the wider organisational benefits which this strategy will deliver.
3. Research culture: We will foster a strong research culture across the organisation, whereby research is valued and decisions across all our functions are informed by evidence.
4. Collaboration: We will work to build and sustain mutually beneficial relationships with other professional regulators, and with relevant departments, agencies, and support services in order to ensure our research activities are aligned with policy developments in the wider research landscape and are appropriately mediated to practitioners. We will also support collaborative engagement by teachers in and with research, in line with Goal number 2 of our corporate strategy.
5. Data: We will leverage the data we hold in house, including the diversity of data collected from registrants, to inform and influence policymaking.
6. Teachers’ professional learning: In accordance with Section 39(2)(a) of the Teaching Council Act, we will focus in particular on research related to teachers’ professional learning. We will also support teachers’ professional learning through research, in order to promote excellence and good practice in teaching.
7. Research ethics: We will adhere to the highest ethical standards in relation to research we conduct and expect the same standards from those carrying our research on our behalf or those carrying out research which has been supported by way of Council funding.
8. Research sharing: We will make our research available to the greatest extent possible in order to maximise access and impact.

Reviewing this strategy

We will review this strategy again in 2026 to ensure its ongoing relevance to the wider corporate strategy.