Mr. John Curtis:

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members for the invitation to participate in the discussion of this important topic. The Joint Managerial Body, JMB, represents roughly 400 voluntary secondary schools in the State.

As committee members are aware, the Department, in its annual statement of priorities 2023, has committed to publishing and commencing delivery of the STEM education implementation plan this year. The current plan, 2017-2026, frames its delivery targets under four pillars. Mr. Irwin referenced one of them, and I will speak briefly to each in this statement.

Pillar 1 deals with nurturing learner engagement and participation. The success of our students in co-curricular initiatives such as the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, Young Social Innovators, Green-Schools Ireland, Take Action for Climate Change and ECO-UNESCO, are all the more remarkable given the lack of investment in infrastructure, support staffing, and time afforded to our schools.

We have been delivering STEM education on a shoestring level of supports and urgently require the provision of laboratory assistants; dedicated time for teachers involved in STEM projects with their students; annualised equipment replacement and software upgrading grants; appropriate laboratory-class space and storage areas; and teacher leadership posts to co-ordinate STEM teaching and activities, including purchasing, and health and safety compliance. In addition, the provision of a fit-for-purpose guidance and counselling service is key to supporting learner engagement and participation, as well as career progression into STEM programmes and employment. Such guidance is particularly needed in support of improving the gender balance in senior cycle science and technology subject uptake, as well as supporting students with additional learning needs in accessing the entire curriculum.

Section 3.2 of the Department’s report STEM Education 2020: Reporting on Practice in Early Learning and Care, Primary and Post-Primary Contexts, forefronts the importance of positive engagement with STEM learning. This requires the early identification of dispositions within young people and tapping into their enthusiasms. Such identification goes beyond the science classroom and requires a school-wide responsiveness to students’ innate capacities and excitement in terms of enrichment activities.

Pillar 2 deals with enhancing teacher and early years practitioner capacity. The welcome emergence of Oide, the professional learning service for teachers, represents an opportunity to develop and deliver a range of continuing professional development, CPD, interventions, which could inform educators about contemporary pedagogies and teaching methods, as well as updating teachers in the ever-changing fields of their STEM-related knowledge areas. Any eventual STEM education policy must be coherent with the current digital learning strategy, as schools are currently overloaded with initiatives in all areas of their practice.

In all cases of CPD provision, recognition must be given to the high levels of professional development of our STEM educators, to capitalise on this resource by adopting a social, shared learning approach, to provide ring-fenced time and continuity of learning domains over years, and to offer Teaching Council-recognised out-of-field programmes which will help with current specialist teacher shortages in these areas. The JMB recognises the current challenges to schools and system in terms of teacher supply. What is needed, nonetheless, is a planned approach to pupil-teacher ratio reduction and to prioritise the supply of qualified STEM educators within this.

Pillar 3 involves the need to support STEM education practice. The reasons underpinning the severe shortage of teachers who are qualified and registered to teach STEM subjects requires investigation because it provides important indicators of the policy-level direction required for us to emerge as a high-capacity education and, ultimately, workforce contributor to the economy. Indicators that should be addressed include: the high cost of qualifying as a secondary school teacher and the risk of exclusion of particular social groups impacting on teaching workforce diversity; the duration of the teacher qualification and recognition processes and the attractiveness to graduates of career pathways other than teaching; the need to remain in constant touch with accelerating STEM-field developments; and the lack of supports in social and ethical education and their pedagogies as they relate to STEM areas of learning and life. The good news is that our educators are not short of motivation. What is needed is a coherent framework under which their innate love of their subject areas, their indisputable agency and innovative capacities and their student-centred approaches to their vocation can offer a perfectly aligned set of conditions in which STEM education can be invigorated as a national priority.

Pillar 4 relates to the use of evidence to support STEM education. Policymakers and curriculum developers are required to be constantly informed by international developments in education practice, prioritisation and policy. At school level, the embedding of an evidence-based paradigm of resource deployment, improvements in teaching, learning and assessment, decision-making about the use of precious school time and engagement with external businesses, communities and further education and training, FET, and other third-level institutions all sit perfectly with the school self-evaluation model. A review by the inspectorate of the tools of secondary school education, SSE, is required to determine their alignment with emerging policy under the digital and STEM education priorities and to support teachers in their use.

As Mr. Irwin spoke about eloquently, we are worried about the differentiation between outcomes in numeracy and literacy in the PISA figures. That is important.

I thank the committee again for its attention to this issue and we look forward to the report and recommendations that will emerge from this important conversation.