Deaf Signing Students in Higher Education: the benefits of a congregated programme for deaf students in teacher education

[EN] Deaf students have typically had lower rates of access to, and progression through higher education.  In Ireland, deaf people have traditionally been excluded from initial teacher eduation for primary teaching.  In Dublin City University in 2019, a pilot initiative commenced to provide a dedicated entry pathway for deaf students to initial teacher education for primary teaching.  Owing to the very unique nature of this pathway, a comprehensive evaluation of this four year pilot initiative was carried out at the request of the Department of Education.  This paper will report preliminary findings from that mixed-methods evalution.  In particular, the findings reported below focus on the benefits found for the creation of a congregated pathway for deaf students (rather than allowing individual students into a variety of different universities) and the subsequent potential for building capacity at the university and in the community for the improved integration of deaf students.