Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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271. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will ensure that his Department will keep CSPE as a compulsory subject at junior certificate level, as any proposal to redesignate CSPE as a non-compulsory subject would remove equality of opportunity in regard to human rights and citizenship education in the Irish education system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26075/14]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Under the new Junior Cycle Framework students will be expected to cover 24 'Statements of Learning' which encompass key knowledge and skills. One of these statements is to learn "to value what it means to be an active citizen with rights and responsibilities in local and wider context". As students will be expected to fulfil this statement, it is anticipated that education for active citizenship, including human rights issues, will continue to be an important part of the new Junior Cycle despite the fact that CSPE is no longer a 'compulsory' subject in the Junior Cycle.

I recently approved a new short course in CSPE that has been developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). This short course will be available to schools to implement from September, should they wish to do so, as part of their Junior Cycle programme. This programme is in fact designed for 100 hours of teaching compared to less than 70 hours for the existing CSPE syllabus.

CSPE will also be complemented at Senior Cycle by the introduction of 'Politics and Society' as a new optional Leaving Certificate subject. The draft syllabus for Politics and Society, which has been developed by the NCCA, is structured around four key areas. Two of these areas are 'Active Citizenship' and 'Human rights and responsibilities'. The Politics and Society subject will be made available to schools once the NCCA has advised my Department on a number of outstanding issues.

My Department is also currently finalising the first National Strategy on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The strategy acknowledges the importance of issues such as citizenship and human rights as part of education for a more sustainable future. It also acknowledges the close relationship between ESD and Development Education. The Strategy is expected to be published shortly.

I am confident that the combination of these measures will ensure that Irish students continue to be interested in citizenship issues. The fact that they are interested in such issues is evident from the data from "Ready to Engage? – the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study" (2010) which ranked Irish 14 year old students 7th out of 36 participating countries in an international study exploring young people's active citizenship.