2025 Conference
The 2025 SCoTENS Annual Conference took place in the stunning surroundings of the Lough Erne Resort, Enniskillen, on 16 & 17 October 2025. This year’s theme, “A New Era for Professionalism: Teacher Identity, Authenticity, and Agency,” brought together educators, researchers, and policymakers to reflect on the evolving nature of teacher professionalism in a rapidly changing world.
The conference theme invited participants to critically examine how societal shifts, technological advancements—particularly the rise of AI—and evolving education policies are reshaping what it means to be a professional teacher. Discussions focused on the challenges and opportunities these changes present for maintaining teacher identity, authenticity, and agency in contemporary classrooms.
Delegates explored the multifaceted influences on teacher professionalism, including policy frameworks, curriculum reforms, and societal expectations. The conference aimed to illuminate both the pressures and possibilities shaping the future of teaching, with a focus on pedagogy, collaboration, and professional autonomy.
We want to thank everyone who got involved in the conference and look forward to meeting up at next year’s event!
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STUDENT-TEACHER EXCHANGE
Providing the next generation of teachers the opportunity to experience a very different educational, social and political setting.
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Seed Funding Scheme
Each year, SCoTENS provides Seed Funding to support a number of collaborative research projects and professional activities in teacher education in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Read MoreAbout SCoTENS
Welcome to the home of the Standing Conference on Teacher Education, North and South (SCoTENS). SCoTENS is a network of 34 colleges of education, university education departments, teaching councils, curriculum councils, education trade unions and education centres on the island of Ireland with a responsibility for and interest in teacher education.
SCOTENS was established in 2003 to create a safe space for teacher educators – North and South– to come together and discuss issues of common interest, and explore ways of co-operating closely together. A part of the broader peace dynamic that was gathering momentum on the island of Ireland at the time, it has always been rooted in the deepest commitment to quality teaching and learning for all. We believe that SCOTENS is the only network of its kind operating across a contested border in the world.
It has been involved in supporting a wide range of research, conference and exchange projects since it was founded in 2003:
The SCoTENS annual conference is a key fixture in the education calendar on the island of Ireland. The annual SCoTENS conference provides a forum where teacher educators across the island of Ireland can engage in open, critical and constructive analysis of current issues in education with a view to promoting a collaborative response to these issues.
The SCoTENS Seed Funding Programme promotes and funds a range of research-based initiatives with a view to establishing sustainable North-South partnerships and projects.
The North/South Student Teacher Exchange project, brings student teachers from Dublin to do a key part of their assessed teaching practice in Belfast schools, and Belfast student teachers to do the same in Dublin. Its membership is open to all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that offer programmes of Initial Teacher Education (ITE).