The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has drawn up plans for more active involvement in the education system going far beyond its present consultative role. The council is frustrated about the constraints on its work.
The Minister for Education, Mr Martin, said two months ago he would give the NCCA increased statutory powers under a new Education Bill which he hopes to publish before Christmas.
The curriculum body currently has only a consultative function in law, although in recent years it has successfully carried out the large and difficult job of completely reforming both the second-level and primary school curriculums.
However, it has increasingly been excluded from any involvement in the in-service training of teachers and other measures to introduce and implement the new curriculums.
In a discussion document circulated last month, the NCCA says there is "considerable confusion and even unease at present" about its role in introducing and implementing the new curriculums.
This confusion, the document says, centres on the Department of Education's in-service training unit and the various support services, usually staffed by seconded teachers, which were put in place by the Department to assist the introduction of new post-primary subjects and programmes. The document also mentions recent problems in introducing the Relationships and Sexuality Education programme in primary schools.
It says the NCCA's role in briefing teachers and other education partners about the new curriculums has rarely been exercised in recent years, particularly at primary level.
The document proposes that the NCCA's role be expanded to include the regular briefing of all the education partners about curriculum development; an active involvement in the design and implementation of teacher-training programmes; advice to those bodies and institutions preparing teaching and learning materials; a greater decision-making role in the provision of support services; the preparation of draft sample examination papers; and advice on the preparation of assessment tests for the new curriculum, particularly in primary schools.
The document notes that systematic curriculum review has not featured in any significant way in the NCCA's work until the current review of the Junior Cert curriculum, announced recently by the Minister for Education.
It stresses that as new curriculums become "more embedded in the system", it is now "essential" that the NCCA take a more active role in reviewing their aims, content and implementation. Such reviews would help both the NCCA and the Department's inspectors, who are in charge of exams.
Finally it warns that the NCCA is operating on an "unacceptably low budget" of £750,000 in 1997. "It is clear that any change in its statutory functions will require a considerable increase in its resources, including human resources, as well as the provision of adequate suitable accommodation."