Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is great to see Ms McManus. I congratulate her on her reappointment. The NCCA is fortunate to have somebody of her calibre and experience at its helm.

First, I wholly endorse everything that Senator Moran said about music education. The curriculum is completely out of kilter with what is happening in modern music. There are an increasing number of young people one would describe as not having had any formal music education who are creating incredible music using technology and the curriculum and the examination of the curriculum needs to reflect that. I am aware from having spoken to Mr. David Hayes, the RTE music producer, arranger and general music genius who is doing either a masters or PhD in the use of technology in music education, that he would be more than willing to contribute to any work Ms McManus is doing in the NCCA in modernising the curriculum to reflect that.

We spoke about the Educational Research Centre, ERC, and, indeed, the Minister, introduced new governance structures around the ERC to us a few minutes ago and I would argue a critical part of that process is to retain the autonomy, independent and objectivity of the work that happens within the ERC. I am always fascinated by the relationship that exists between the NCCA and the Department of Education and Skills. Is there an autonomous independent role there for the NCCA in terms of steering the direction of Irish education in general or is the NCCA there solely to implement decisions taken within the Department? How much autonomy and independence has the NCCA and how often does Ms McManus exercise that autonomy and independence in terms of making a case to the Department at either informal or formal level for a change to a particular curriculum subject matter?

How often does the NCCA look at best practice abroad and seek to convince those in charge of the need to make a change in the delivery of a particular subject? I ask that question in the context of something interesting that happened in the United Kingdom yesterday. The BBC, in collaboration with the United Kingdom Department of Education and a host of ICT entities, both private and public, came together and decided to gift every 11 year old student in the UK education system with a microcomputer, which can do fairly extraordinary things and which will for the first time allow these children access to a computer that they can control. In essence, it is merely an empty shell that they can control, programme and get to do extraordinary things. It is a ground-breaking, visionary and courageous act and it ties in nicely with the introduction of computer science as a subject in the curriculum in the United Kingdom last year. I wonder whether the NCCA is observing what is happening internationally in terms of the use of technology in education. Has the NCCA drawn any conclusions on whether Ireland is, as it should be, at the cutting edge of this or is somehow tagging along on the coat tails of others? Has the NCCA ever drawn the conclusion that there is an urgent need to reassess how we deliver subject matter through the use of technology in the classrooms bearing in mind that the vast majority of the children in the classrooms are more than comfortable using that technology and often find it strange that they are told to put that same technology back into their pockets or schoolbags before they begin class in the morning? I wonder how much autonomy Ms McManus has and how courageous she has been and intends to be in using that autonomy to ask serious questions around the delivery of the curriculum, both now and in the future.