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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 5 Nov 2002

Vol. 556 No. 3

Written Answers. - State Examinations.

Gay Mitchell

Ceist:

392 Mr. G. Mitchell asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the concerns of persons (details supplied) in Dublin 8; and his proposals to resolve the difficulties expressed in their correspondence. [20286/02]

I received correspondence recently from home economics teachers in a number of schools in addition to the correspondence referred to by the Deputy concerning the introduction of the revised leaving certificate home economics syllabus.

The leaving certificate home economics – general – syllabus has been in existence since the majority of teachers in the system began their careers. The leaving certificate home economics – social and scientific – syllabus was introduced in the 1970s. Clearly, there are changes in society and in education that warrant a change in syllabus at this stage. The elements of the syllabus most in need of updating are in the area of food science and the legislation affecting food, resource management and social studies. Another change, much sought after by teachers who found the old syllabi very difficult to cover in the time available, is the reduction of the two old syllabi to one and the reduction of teaching time to 180 hours. This has been achieved by a streamlining of content and by the introduction of a strong element of choice. Perhaps the most important change from the point of view of quality of learning and teaching is the new emphasis on practical work in the revised syllabus. It is clear from the above that if schools were to continue to teach material that is now outdated and to use methods that are no longer helpful to learning, students would be increasingly badly served by the teaching offered to them.

My Department has put in place a range of supports for school teachers and pupils in relation to the introduction of the home economics sylla bus. These include: support for individual teachers as requested at inservice, draft syllabus guidelines available at inservice, syllabus guidelines issued to schools, teachers' notes prepared for the national inservice days which are also available on request from the support team, and materials available on the support team website.
The teachers' concerns regarding the depth of treatment of common material in the new syllabus and the areas of practice can be overcome as a result of the range of supports outlined as well as the inservice planned for the next two years. The revised syllabus will be examined for the first time in 2004.
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