A BREATH of fresh air - that's how Aine Nerney, a member of the curriculum support team for business, describes the new Leaving Certificate programme that starts in schools in September.

"It's giving students a sense of what it's like to be in business," she says. "The old `biz-org' course focused on the institutions that make business possible, but the new course contains an emphasis on enterprise and management."

Importantly, the new syllabus represents a major move away from the regurgitation of learning towards the application of knowledge.

The aims of the new Leaving Certificate business syllabus include the preparation of students to participate in a changing business environment, the encouragement of initiative, self-reliance and enterprise skills and the development of a critical understanding of the environment in which business functions. A major objective of the course is to enable students to make informed business decisions.

The syllabus contains three sections - people in business, enterprise and environment. The people-in-business section examines people and their relationships in business, including consumers, investors, suppliers, employers and employees; it touches on their conflicting interests and how they are resolved.

"Enterprise" includes an examination of entrepreneurism and enterprise skills, management and marketing. The "environment" section includes the domestic and international environments. The domestic-environment section is designed to enable students to understand the interaction between business firms, the local community, the government and the economy.

Studying the international environment is intended to enable students to understand the opportunities and challenges facing Irish business in the international environment.

"I'm pleased with the syllabus," says Dermot Reynolds, who teaches business at St Paul's College, Raheny, Dublin. "It puts down boundaries. The old syllabus was a creeping syllabus and there were no limits to it."

Teachers are relieved to learn that the new syllabus defines the legislation that is to be studied. The Department of Education must now notify schools if any changes occur.

The new Leaving Cert programme is designed to follow on from the Junior Certificate course which promotes active learning. "The majority of Leaving Certificate business students will have taken business studies at Junior Certificate level, the aim of which is to encourage active learning" Nerney says.

As a result of the new syllabus, the length of the exam is to be increased by half an hour - from two-and-a-half to three hours. Exam questions have in the past been fact-based; now students will be asked to apply learning to business situations.

However, if teachers are optimistic about the new syllabus, they remain cautious. "Until we see the exam papers, and are reassured that there will he less emphasis on rote learning and more emphasis on the application of knowledge, we can't he loo per cent certain," Reynolds says.

A welcome development for teachers is the in-service training, which is being delivered by a team of seven business teachers seconded directly to the schools. The team, which has been employed for a two-year period, visits schools' directly, arranges cluster meetings with groups of teachers and provides support materials.

Nerney points to the benefits of the peripatetic in-service team. "Talking to teachers in small groups is fantastic," she says. "You get their genuine reactions and everybody has the chance to ask the questions they want answered." All team members have been issued with mobile phones and are in constant direct contact with teachers by phone and fax.