Ms Brigid McManus:

Not usually, but I suspect it is the way some teachers viewed the circulars sent at the time.

I fully endorse what has been said about the importance of music. In terms of the curriculum, it is not on one of our immediate lists. In fairness, I suspect that is because some of the subjects at which we are looking have been on the list for an unconscionably longer time. It is one of the challenges that we face. I will return to the matter of redesigning the senior cycle programme. Within current subjects, we probably have not done enough to keep the curriculum up to date, which is a resource issue. The art curriculum was revised. However, there were resource implications for schools in rolling it out. It was not implemented because there was no funding available. We have to look at the matter again as it is probably out of date. We have done a smaller job in changing some of the assessment arrangements to make the subject more modern and bring it more into line with the State Examination Commission. That is what we are trying to do in the case of some subjects. I will talk to the staff and come back to the committee on the matter.

On the specific issue of music technology, on some subjects we sit down with the subject teacher associations and the State Examination Commission. We do not conduct a full curriculum review but make the adjustments needed. To be honest, I do not know but making an adjustment might be a way to deal with the matter.