Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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201. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the progress that his Department has made in securing funding and resources for introduction of coding to all primary schools by 2019; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31111/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The NCCA is in the process of developing a new primary mathematics curriculum.  Following my request to consider how children’s computational, flexible and creative thinking skills might be developed through this new mathematics curriculum, and how coding might be integrated in the wider primary curriculum, the NCCA is reviewing curriculum policy and practice in other jurisdictions in terms of these areas of children's education at primary level.

Currently the PDST Technology in Education provide training for both primary and post primary teachers in ICT which includes 'Scratch' coding.  5,800 teachers received ICT training in 2016.

Furthermore, a large number of schools are running voluntary coding programmes through initiatives such as Coder Dojo (over 200 dojos in Ireland), Hour of Code where over 200 events took place in Ireland and the annual computer programming olympiad held at Dublin City University.

Further resources in this area will be looked at in conjunction with the STEM Education policy statement and implementation plan, which I intend to finalise shortly.