I know that you need 3 takeoffs and landings in type (MEL, SEL, Helo, etc) every 90 days to carry passengers but recently a CFI said that wasn't required for flight training. His reasoning was that a student wasn't a passenger. So according to him to train someone going for a MEL rating the CFIME only needed the 5 hours in the aircraft but didn't need to be current in landings. Is this guy correct or does the CFI have to be current in landings if the student isn't rated in the aircraft?

Thanks from the link you provided it looks like the CFI I talked with was correct in that the CFI doesn't need to have landing currency as long as he and the student are the only ones in the aircraft.

Essentially both student and instructor are considered crew for an instructional flight, so there are no pax.