Dr. Jacqueline Fallon:

I will pick up on the reference to drama. We fully understand that many of the questions are focused on junior cycle and senior cycle and clearly arise as well from what, rightly, has been a very impactful input by the ISSU. We hope the committee would remember that all the young people represented by the ISSU began that journey in early childhood education with what is called Aistear, Irish for "journey", which is the early childhood curriculum framework. In terms of drama and in the context of curriculum coherence from the NCCA's perspective, we can actually track drama through from the provisions in the early childhood curriculum framework around socio-dramatic play, which specifically mentions the fact that girls and boys need opportunities at that very young age to engage in non-stereotypical play activities. To give a picture of what that looks like, we want to see the girls playing with the blocks and the cars and we equally want to see the boys playing in the home corner with the dolls and the saucepans. We can track that through then.

One of the things we are looking at, and which has emerged from our consultation on the draft primary framework, is the issue of drama. We can see we have an issue to address here. There are issues emerging around the idea that drama should be a methodology and not a subject. I refer back to the issue raised by Deputy Carroll MacNeill on the time it takes, and this is a very good example of why we need to spend that time developing curriculum specifications. We must have a dialogue with stakeholders in the sector, particularly with teachers, principals, parents and children, on those types of issues where we need to create understanding of why we need drama as a subject. We are a country of incredible actors and playwrights and we need time to have a dialogue that provides a floor for what we want to do in our curriculum. That is one of the reasons that the development of a specification can take two years. There is a hearts and minds piece of work that has to be done.