Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 22 October 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth
Curriculum Reform at Senior Cycle: Discussion (Resumed)
2:00 am
Mr. Humphrey Jones:
As Mr. Gillespie has said, we are proceeding with it and we are teaching it in the classrooms. Ultimately, what will happen as we progress is that we are just going to see the widening of that social divide become more transparent. Schools that have lots of well-resourced laboratories, lab technicians, and funds to procure equipment and chemicals to carry out more complex experiments, will have an advantage over those that do not.
On the wider issue, we are treading careful ground in how these can all be carried out safely. Maybe 50,000 to 55,000 of these individual experiments will be taking place in our schools in a year's time. This batch of cohorts of students are the guinea pigs in this process. I certainly hope there will not be any safety issues related to that.
No comments