Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The integration of ICT into schools is what is crucial rather than segregating it into a subject which inevitably in the case of the leaving certificate would become a choice subject. What is even more important is that teachers integrate it into their teaching and students into their learning. There is some good software now but it is more important that teachers have the training to be able to use it in a curricular sense rather than have a separate subject.

Increasingly, we see ICT coming into the main curriculum subjects. For example, the new technology subject involves computer-aided design. That new subject will be examined for the first time in 2009 as it will be introduced in schools in 2007. Here we have an integration of the technology into a subject. We also see students using it in other subjects. Film, for example, which is part of the Gaeilge course for the leaving certificate, uses computer technology as well.

In recent months, the digital school awards, under the NCTE, have encouraged schools to be more innovative in the way in which they use the technology. I presented some of the awards in the schools and it is fascinating to see how they are integrating it into the wider school curriculum. I would like to see that cross-curricular culture of comfort of learning and of teaching being used in all the schools rather than segregating it as a separate subject.

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