Syllabuses must be reviewed on a constant basis if teachers are "to help keep the tiger roaring", the Minister for Education and Science was told at an awards-giving ceremony last week. He was urged to introduce regular monitoring and updating of all business studies subjects if he wanted to ensure dynamism and confidence in the classroom. Rose Mary Lynch, president of the Business Studies Teachers' Association, called on the Minister to ensure that change is a constant which "must permeate all we do in the education system". This was necessary, she said, if teachers are to have confidence in their subjects. "Needs change," she warned. "We would like to see the review of the syllabuses as ongoing."

She pointed out that new syllabuses have been introduced in the business studies area, and that a new economics syllabus is on its way. However, she urged the Minister to ensure subject reviews are regular and that "the Department, the National Council for Curriculum Assessment and other relevant bodies take this on board and remember that dynamic is the word attributed to our Celtic Tiger economy and being dynamic and embracing change must permeate what we do in the education system."

The annual award ceremony, which was organised by the Irish Bankers' Federation for the thirteenth year, honours student and teacher excellence. Awards and medals are presented to the students who achieve first place in the subjects of accounting, business, economics and business studies in their Leaving Certificate exam, and certificates are presented to their respective teachers.

This year's recipients are AnnMarie Hogan, of the Dominican Convent, Muckross Park in Dublin 4 and her teacher Bernie Delaney; Maeve Fitzgerald at St Joseph's College, Lucan, Co Dublin, and her teacher Kathleen Madigan; Jane Mary Dollard from St Leo's Collage, Carlow, and her teacher Olive McGuinness and Eva Bernadette Lomasney from St Joseph's Secondary School in Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick, and her teacher Mary Maher.

The Minister praised the association for its active role in business education which ranges from in-career courses and examination reports to publication of a business information pack and Transition Year guidelines. "BSTAI members have played key roles in the development of the subjects, mastery of which the students have demonstrated last June," he said. Also, he pointed out, in many cases they have taken the lead in developments in IT in second-level schools.

There are 2,500 teachers involved in the business studies area of teaching in Ireland. The BSTAI represents almost half of them. According to the Department of Education and Science, over two-thirds of all students at Junior and Leaving Certificate level now take a business subject. The relevance of these subjects was highlighted by Kevin Kelly, president of the IBF, who told the gathering last week that some 4,200 recruits were taken on in the banking industry in 1998. And throughout the 1990s he said the number of people employed in banking grew by 58 per cent.