Dr. Derek Grant:

I thank the Chathaoirleach Gníomhach very much. He might be interested to know that when the 1999 curriculum was being developed, social and environmental education, as we are developing and conceiving it now, was actually the way it had been intended then - history and geography would go together. Science was then woven in with history and geography to become SESE. The challenge there was always that, to some extent, history and geography are natural bedfellows in the social and environmental context but the scientific aspect was always an outlier. Part of this redevelopment of the curriculum concerns the opportunity to look again at and realign social and environmental education together as history and geography, and also to align with our national STEM policy and strategy and the idea of scientific education aligning with engineering and mathematics.

The engineering aspect now coming to greater prominence in the STEM education area was always a part of the 1999 curriculum. It was the design and make piece. The engineering element now, though, is coming more to the fore in the STEM curriculum area. The nature of science, however, and of inquiry and investigation, the strand of living things, biotechnology and bioeconomy and all of that is very much embedded within what will be the redeveloped STEM curriculum area. We are holding what is true in the science area and carrying it through into the redeveloped STEM curriculum area to build on what was originally in the 1999 curriculum.