Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The civic, social and political education, CSPE, programme, along with physical education, PE, and social, personal, and health education, SPHE, form the core pillars of the mandatory well-being aspect of the curriculum at junior cycle. The 100-hour CSPE short course, which was introduced in 2016 and updated in 2021, contributes to building the skills students need to contribute positively to a democratic society and to promote sustainable living. Building on related learning experiences in primary education, CSPE gives students an understanding of social, economic and political structures at local, national and global levels and the opportunity to imagine and create ways in which they can make a difference to the lives of individuals and communities.

As a core pillar of the junior cycle well-being programme, all schools are required to teach CSPE. This is reflected in the Department’s post-primary online database, which shows all 722 post-primary schools provide CSPE at junior cycle level. This includes the 232 post-primary DEIS schools registered on our system. I want to be clear that all our schools provide the CSPE programme.

The inspectorate of the Department of Education works to improve the quality of learning for children and young people in schools, early learning and care settings, centres for education and other learning settings. This is done through the provision of high-quality evaluation, analysis and advice. A range of inspection types is used to gather information on the quality of education provision and to evaluate schools. These range from one-day incidental inspections that are typically unannounced to more intensive whole-school evaluations and inspections that follow through on how schools have implemented recommendations made in previous inspection reports.

In general, CSPE is evaluated as part of the "Whole-School Evaluation: Management, Leadership and Learning" process. This process is designed to evaluate key aspects of the work of the school and to promote school improvement. CSPE is evaluated as part of the "quality of support for students' wellbeing" heading of these reports. Inspectors evaluate whether schools are providing CSPE as set out in the framework for junior cycle and the manner in which the school manages and addresses the well-being of all its students.

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