Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

464. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to provide an update on programmes to improve media literacy in primary and secondary schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32750/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The development of digital skills and media literacy must start from a young age. The Department of Education and Youth’s response to the provision of digital skills and media literacy within early childhood and care and school settings includes:

• Curriculum at all levels
• Digital Strategy for Schools to 2027
• STEM Education Policy Statement 2017-2026
• Literacy, Numeracy and Digital Literacy Strategy 2024-2033

• Initial desktop audit of 22 jurisdictions with a focus on identifying the presence of coding in the curriculum
• Follow-on in-depth curriculum investigation which explored how six international jurisdictions integrated coding and computational thinking into their curricula
• Review of literature on computational thinking and its importance for children’s learning as well as its place in a primary curriculum.

• An ever-increasing number of primary schools are moving beyond the current curriculum and are already teaching about coding and computational thinking in their classrooms.
• A playful, child-centred, project-based approach to the teaching of coding and computational thinking was very effective.
• The identification of three aspects of digital competence—creating with technology, understanding technology, and using technology— as fundamental to the inclusion of coding and computational thinking in a curriculum.

• Continuing with interagency collaboration, for example, with Oide, Education Centres, and Webwise, to ensure a joined-up approach in the work with schools on digital technologies and to inform the ongoing redevelopment of the primary curriculum.
• Adopting and supporting a playful, child-centred, project-based approach to teaching coding and computational thinking.
• Creating an explicit space in the curriculum, for example, in ‘science and technology’ to enable teaching and learning of the fundamental skills and concepts of coding and computational thinking, alongside integration across the curriculum.

• The Primary Language Curriculum highlights the important of Digital Literacy which supports the child’s ability to locate, select and critically analyse relevant information in text, visual and audio. It also includes the capacity to engage with digital technology in creative and imaginative ways.
• The Primary Curriculum Framework, () published in March 2023 outlines ‘being a digital learner’ as one of seven key competencies. This seeks to support children to become curious, creative, confident, and critical users of digital technology while fostering responsible, safe and ethical use of technology. The framework also proposes that digital technology would become part of the curriculum area of Science, Technology and Mathematics with its own subject specification for third to sixth class.
• The Primary Mathematics Curriculum, 2023 provides for children to investigate, develop, select, apply, interpret, model and compare a variety of problem-solving situations and strategies as they explore Mathematics and deepen their mathematical understanding. They apply their mathematical knowledge and skills in flexible, efficient and creative ways to solve problems; conduct investigations; and develop and share their computational thinking.
• The Science, Technology and Engineering (STE) Education Curriculum specification to be published in September 2025 places an emphasis on developing children’s awareness and appreciation of the nature of STEM, while engaging in scientific inquiry, computational thinking and the design thinking process. Computational thinking encourages children to use logic and reasoning to break down problems into manageable parts, to apply prior knowledge to new contexts and to focus on important information relevant to the process of problem-solving.