Dr. Patrick Sullivan:

On behalf of the NCCA, I thank the Chair and committee members for this opportunity to speak to them. I thank the Chairman for her kind introduction. I will not go through the introductions in my written submission of the people accompanying me. We acknowledge the important work of the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality and are delighted to speak about the NCCA's work in supporting specific recommendations in the assembly's report.

Appointed by the Minister for Education, the council has a representative structure. Its remit is to advise the Minister on the curriculum for early childhood education and primary and post-primary schools as well as the assessment procedures employed in schools and public examinations on subjects which are part of the curriculum. The NCCA develops curriculum and assessment advice by working closely with learners, teachers, practitioners, parents and school leaders; through extensive consultation; by drawing on research evidence, good practice and international experience; and through ongoing deliberation by the council, our boards and development groups. This work is underpinned by eight principles that enable the development of advice that recognises the uniqueness of each young person and the importance of supporting all children to reach their potential.

The NCCA recognises the role that education can play in support of gender equality. Recommendation 27 in the assembly's report presents actions addressing unhelpful gender norms and stereotypes. These relate directly to our work, and I wish to highlight relevant developments in social, personal and health education, SPHE, relationships and sexuality education, RSE. science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, education and the wider curriculum.

The NCCA's review of RSE in primary and post-primary schools identified a number of actions, a key one being the development of an integrated and updated curriculum grounded in the rights and needs of young people that is holistic, child-centred, inclusive, and age- and stage-appropriate. A draft junior cycle SPHE curriculum will be published in the coming weeks, with consultation open until mid-October and with the final specification available to schools from September 2023.

Updated curricula for senior cycle and primary schools will be finalised in 2023 and 2024, respectively. These will promote gender equality by addressing topics such as rights and responsibilities in relationships, healthy, unhealthy and abusive relationships, interacting safely and respectfully with the Internet, gender and sexual diversity and sexual consent. In the interim, the NCCA has established online toolkits to support the work of schools in this area. We have supplied an overview of this work in the supplementary reading.

The council is also conscious of gender equality in STEM education, with the following as examples of our work. The draft primary mathematics curriculum sees children of all genders as mathematicians and includes approaches to encourage all children to be actively involved in maths learning and to think positively about the subject. As part of our curriculum development processes, work on post-primary subjects such as biology, chemistry and physics explicitly aims to widen their appeal to re-balance gender uptake.

Other subjects, such as history, classics, English and politics and society, help to raise awareness of and promote gender equality. Examples include learning about women previously written out of history, studying the work of renowned female thinkers and theorists and exploring human rights issues related to gender, ethnicity and social class, and concepts such as power, participation, equality, inequality and bias. The study of English texts also provides opportunities to explore and challenge stereotyping in the real world and in fiction.

The NCCA is redeveloping the primary curriculum and senior cycle. In addition, Aistear, the early childhood curriculum framework is being updated and we continue to support the work of schools with the framework for junior cycle. This work is grounded in a commitment to inclusion and diversity as well as active citizenship and social justice. Supporting gender equality requires a systemic response in which curriculum and assessment provision is one aspect, albeit an important one.

The NCCA is committed to working with stakeholders to continue to support the recommendations in the report of the Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality. Further information is provided in our written submission and accompanying documents. My colleagues and I are happy to answer questions members may have. I thank the committee for its time.