Minister for Education Caitriona Ruane opens sixth SCoTENS conference

The Minister for Education, Ms Caitriona Ruane MLA, opened the sixth annual conference of the Standing Conference on Teacher Education North and South(SCoTENS) at the Wellington Park Hotel in Belfast on 9 October 2008.

The conference’s title was School Leadership, Policy and Practice, North and South. The keynote speakers were Ms Deborah Nusche, OECD Directorate for Education, Paris, on the 2008 OECD report Improving School Leadership, with system responses from Dr Tom Hesketh, Director, Regional Training Unit (Northern Ireland) and Mr Paddy Flood, Leadership Development in Schools (Republic of Ireland), and academic responses from Dr Ciaran Sugrue (University of Cambridge) and Dr Timothy London (Queen’s University Belfast). Other speakers were Mr Will Haire, Permanent Secretary, Department of Education; Dr David Armstrong on the PricewaterhouseCoopers study on theAttractiveness of Headship: Ireland North and South; Northern and Southern school principals, Ms Catherine Wegwermer and Mr Martin Wallace; and a panel of education trade unionists and teacher professional organisation representatives. Over 100 delegates from all over Ireland attended the conference.