First year Catholic and Protestant trainee primary teachers are being educated together in Ireland for the first time in over 150 years.
The breakthrough follows agreement by all the major Christian denominations to share a single teacher training site run by Dublin City University, which is statutorily-secular.
DCU's President Brian MacCraith said it took four years to negotiate a detailed legal agreement between the university and the leaders of the main Christian churches to bring trainee primary teachers onto DCU's St Patrick's College campus in Drumcondra, Dublin.
He said DCU put in place two denominational centres which have the responsibility of ensuring that there is adequate preparation of teachers for all patron bodies, be they Roman Catholic or the Reformed Christian traditions.
Since the 1860s, religious bodies have controlled the overwhelming majority of what are now the primary schools.
Of the 438 first year students currently registered on DCU's Bachelor of Education programmes, only four have not registered for Catholic or Protestant modules designed to qualify them to teach in schools run by patrons representing Christian denominations.
397 are registered for "Catholic stream modules", while 37 have gained entry through a "Restricted Entry" pathway reserved for "the Reformed Church tradition".
Students may also take courses in St Pat's to qualify them to teach in the rapidly growing number of schools run by the multi-denominational and multi-faith Educate Together network.
Prof MacCraith said he envisages opening talks with other faith groups, including Muslims, with a view to providing teacher education in accordance with their religious beliefs.
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