Draft guidelines for curriculum reform due to be distributed at the start of the new academic year are aimed at developing a "shared sense that language, culture and ethnic diversity is valuable".
The guidelines are being prepared as part of an initiative aimed at giving guidance to teachers and pupils in an increasingly multicultural Ireland.
Non-national children account for around 3% of pupils in secondary schools, with students from more than 160 countries attending primary and post-primary schools throughout the State.
A document proposing a draft framework for the guidelines prepared by the government advisory body, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), states that their impact and effectiveness will be evaluated after they are distributed. An in-depth study of 16 schools will explore the reception of the guidelines by teachers and the school.
This will be followed by the production of final Intercultural Education Curriculum Guidelines for distribution to all primary and post-primary schools.
An internal NCCA document presented to its Senior Cycle Review Committee last month outlines the draft framework for the guidelines which has been drawn up following consultation, a review of literature and the direction of a steering committee.
The document says the overall aim of the draft guidelines is "to contribute to the development of Ireland as an intercultural society, through the development of a shared sense that language, culture and ethnic diversity is valuable, and a shared willingness and capacity and a recognition of our collective responsibility to protect for each other the right to be different". The document says the guidelines will address the needs of all pupils which will arise in the context of growing cultural and ethnic diversity. They will also:
Describe the context of a growing existence of and awareness of language, cultural and ethnic diversity in Ireland and a changing policy and legal context in relation to diversity and discrimination;
Answer questions that members of the educational community have arising from the growing existence of and awareness of language, cultural and ethnic diversity in Ireland;
Mediate the existing curricula in a way that reflects cultural diversity;
Facilitate schools in creating an anti-bias culture and environment;
Facilitate teachers in developing attitudes, skills and knowledge necessary to enable them to deliver intercultural education.