Teaching Matters: There is a broad consensus within Irish society regarding the twin national aims of achieving an ongoing improvement in the standard of living for all while simultaneously enhancing quality of life. Both of these aims present distinctive challenges, not always complementary and sometimes contradictory.

As regards the standard of living, Ireland has committed itself to the knowledge economy. This economy relies on knowledge as the key resource - replacing the so called "natural" resources which underpinned the traditional economy.

The capability to source information; to analyse and interpret it and to apply it in innovative ways becomes the essential basis for high quality employment in such an economy. Much of Ireland's recent economic success is based on the capacity to manipulate information in this way and can to some extent be attributed to the high levels of education and expertise of new entrants to the workforce over the past decade or so.

There is a sense in some sections in modern Ireland that having finally attained long-held standard of living objectives, we still have some way to go on the quality of life front. There is a view that not only has economic success failed to deliver here but that it may have been achieved at the expense of quality of life.

Of particular importance here is the experience of childhood in modern Ireland. Perhaps the most disturbing insight Irish society has had in recent years has centred on the neglect and abuse of children which was endemic in this society for so long and in so many spheres.

It is entirely necessary, therefore, that as a society we build in the strongest child protection systems to ensure there can never be a recurrence of such systemic failure in the future.

While doing this, we need also to look at the wider experience of childhood in Ireland today. In particular, we need to ensure that the environment in which children grow up provides a rich learning context - one that is stimulating, culturally enriching and formative of the child's developmental potential in all its aspects.

While we need to find out a lot more on this subject, one detects a growing concern in Ireland that children are being brought up in environments which are commodity rich but culturally poor. The family is much less central to the lives of many children today. They have also experienced the huge growth of mass media, especially television in their daily lives and seen the decline of old rituals.

There is a sense that the child's world has become depleted as an imaginative zone. Yes, they can embrace the new technology but, strangely, many a contemporary child can be strangely isolated and disconnected. He or she can be denied adequate opportunity for creative development or expression.

Whether this is the case or not, it is certainly true that the school is increasingly being looked at as the engine that can drive the Irish national project on its twin aims of economic growth and civic advancement. This is a heavy responsibility.

As so many other learning zones, such as the home and the neigbourhood, decline in significance the school is asked to pick up the slack. Within such a context the significance of the teacher's role continues to expand. The primary school teacher must provide an environment in the school in which the child feels nurtured, is intellectually stimulated and is invited into new words of the imagination.

The second-level teacher, sometimes confronted with a challenging and disaffected minority of teenagers, is expected to deliver a population of well-educated and well-rounded young people, self-motivated, capable of further study and of seamlessly entering the labour force as highly qualified and productive workers.

As pointed out by the OECD in 2003, Ireland is fortunate in its teaching profession. Unlike many other developed countries both primary and second-level teaching in Ireland continues to attract entrants of a high intellectual calibre.

Teachers in Ireland, by and large, also bring enormous qualities of commitment and dedication to their profession. These are qualities, however, that can also be depleted in the day-to-day demands of the job. Just as teaching can be an intensely rewarding profession, it also carries high stress and high burn-out potential.

Teachers are working in increasingly challenging environments, where they are sometimes the mainstay in the lives of the children with whom they are dealing. They also face the task of dealing with ever more demanding parents. As a professional group, they are acutely conscious of the high stakes which their students are playing for in a competitive academic environment.

Considering the pivotal nature of the role on so many fronts, it is surely self evident that they must receive the highest quality initial teacher training - and then be supported in their ongoing professional development.

This should address both subject-specific issues and wider pedagogical and personal development ones. Teachers need to be enabled to become part of a wider conversation with their colleagues and with others on all aspects of their professional development. They need to feel that their professional concerns are being heard and addressed; that the insights garnered in the classroom contribute to the thinking on new solutions.

Considering the demands and the expectations we are now placing on them, this is hardly too much to expect.

Prof Tom Collins is head of education at NUI Maynooth