Apart from a small number of prescribed texts at post-primary level, determined by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), the decisions on which textbooks, programmes and resources, if any, to use in primary and post-primary schools are taken at school level.
The current policy of the Department of Education is not to endorse or promote any particular programme, product or publication to support the teaching of subjects. There are limited exceptions where the department has procured textbooks or resources in order to fill a specific and urgent need, for example Leaving Certificate Japanese and Italian.
Curriculum specifications and prescribed syllabus material are determined by the NCCA and it is the responsibility of each individual school to select the resources, if any, that it will use to support its implementation of the curriculum.
The NCCA meets with the educational publishers collectively, to regularly update them on curriculum developments and apprise them of the timelines for the development of new specifications. The NCCA does not advise upon the content of specific text books. Nor does the NCCA review or provide feedback on textbooks or have any role in endorsing or approving textbooks – this would be considered as interfering with the commercial marketplace
The Department provides a book grant to all recognised primary and post-primary schools within the Free Education Scheme in order to provide assistance for books, including Book Rental Schemes. Under this scheme, the Department provided funding of €17.1 million in 2020 to all of these schools. School book rental schemes have an important role to play in reducing the cost of school books for parents and in order to support the establishment of book rental schemes this Department provided €15.7 million seed capital in 2014, 2015 and 2016 to primary schools. Some 96% of primary schools and 68% of post-primary schools currently operate a book rental scheme.
It is a matter for the board of management of each individual school to decide on its own policy in relation to the use of book grant funding in the school. However, they are expected to adopt a cost-conscious approach to the selection of books for use in their classes. The current arrangement relies on the local knowledge of the school in order to ensure a fair allocation of funds to those most in need.
The Department published Circular 0032/2017 – ‘Measures to be adopted by schools to reduce the cost of school uniforms and other costs’ - in April 2017 which asks schools to provide a book rental scheme as well as to consult with parents on their views and suggestions on cost reduction initiatives.
Members of the Irish Educational Publishers’ Association (IEPA) subscribe to a Code of Practice which includes an agreement that publishers will not revise any texts within at least four years - unless there is a change in the curriculum, the state examination or methods of assessment, or if there is a recognised teacher-led demand to do so.
