Ms Arlene Forster:

A Chathaoirligh, I can respond. There was a development group. It was the junior cycle SPHE development group which completed its work in the early part of last year. There a couple of points that are really important here in responding to the Senator. The development groups are representative structures. The vast majority of members of all the curriculum and assessment development groups in NCCA are actually nominated by the partners in education. The NCCA executive, the council, has no role in that membership. Those members come forward from the nominating bodies. In addition, then, in the case of each development group, there are approximately two members who come through what we call a public co-option process whereby we essentially put out a call, an invitation for expressions of interest. They come through and then between two and four members of development groups come through that process. In the case of that process, what we are seeking is to add additional expertise to the development group. Again, it depends on the subject or curriculum area the development group is working on. Those are the two ways in which the membership of each development group is decided. In the case of the junior cycle SPHE development group, it so happened that the members were female.