Evolution of Irish curriculum culture: understandings, policy, reform and change

Abstract

Through the lens of contrasting curriculum cultures, the author considers the evolution of Irish curriculum policy and reform. Whereas our curriculum thinking and practice are grounded in an Anglo-Saxon/American culture, Didaktik curriculum culture and Stenhouse’s Process model provide valuable alternative perspectives. Our prevailing understandings of curriculum are reified, in an environment where curriculum reform/change are used interchangeably. Historically, our curriculum reform efforts have been characterised by centralised control and a paucity of research, debate, and school-based curriculum development. Meaningful curriculum change, however, challenges the cultural beliefs of employers, parents, and students and requires critical engagement with the professional beliefs and values of educational administrators, school leaders and teachers. Since the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment became statutory, our curriculum culture, and our understandings of curriculum change, have been evolving. This growing appreciation of the complexity of change is reflected in the discourse of the Framework for Junior Cycle. The influence of Anglo-Saxon/American curriculum culture remains palpable, however, while the impact of globalisation and market forces is evidenced in a growing emphasis on skills, competences and pre-determined learning outcomes. The author concludes that we have arrived at a hybrid curriculum culture whose future development is rather difficult to predict.

Keywords:

• evolution of Irish curriculum culture
• Anglo-Saxon/American and Didaktik curriculum cultures
• understandings of curriculum
• curriculum reform and change
• pre-determined learning outcomes
• National Council for Curriculum and Assessment

Introduction

This paper tracks the evolution of Irish curriculum policy and practice from the joint perspectives of curriculum culture and curriculum reform. The author critically considers the prevailing tendency to use ‘curriculum reform’ and ‘curriculum change’ interchangeably, as if reform inevitably leads to change. However, the phenomenon of reform without change (Cuban 1998; House 1974), what Sarason (1990) calls the ‘predictable failure of educational reform’, is all too common due to the powerful influence of the educational beliefs and values of educational administrators, school leaders, teachers, employers, parents and students on school practices (Fullan 2016; Hord 1995).

Consideration of this reform/change dilemma raises fundamental questions regarding our understandings both of curriculum and curriculum reform. Curriculum scholars (Westbury 2000; Hopmann 2007; Deng 2018) identify two quite contrasting curriculum cultures that provide a valuable lens through which to view curriculum policy and practice. As noted by Lynch, Grummel, and Devine (2012, 5) Ireland ‘operates within the Anglo-American zone of influence for reasons of history, culture, language, colonisation and trade [and] displays the many of the features of its powerful neo-liberal neighbours in terms of its social, health and educational policies’. This influence is reflected in our prevailing Anglo-Saxon/American¹ curriculum culture with its focus on subject disciplines, ends and means, and pre-determined learning outcomes. On the other hand, the classical culture of Didaktik, deriving from Bildung, a process of social and cultural formation, and not to be confused with didactic² (Nie and Lau 2010), is primarily concerned with student self-formation.

The reform/change dilemma also encourages reflection on the etymology of curriculum, on Irish definitions and understandings of curriculum, and on what Barrow (1984) calls the purpose of the ‘whole enterprise’. Ireland’s open economy provides a hospitable environment for globalisation forces and neo-liberal market-driven ideologies (Ball 2012; Rizvi and Lingard 2010; Priestley 2002). In that environment, the development of human capital, which has long been the dominant rationale for education (Hannan and Shortall 1991; O’Sullivan 2005; Gleeson 2010), exercises huge influence on our curriculum reform efforts.

The author locates Irish curriculum reform efforts in their historical context and traces the evolution of Irish curriculum policy from Independence through to the present day. This analysis suggests that, since its establishment as a statutory body, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) has modified our prevailing Anglo-Saxon/American curriculum culture and our understandings of curriculum reform. Two developments that are indicative of such an evolving curriculum culture are considered later in some detail: The Framework for Junior Cycle (DES 2015) and the NCCA (undated) Discussion Paper, Leading and Supporting Change in Schools. Having identified the emergence of a hybrid curriculum culture, the author ponders its future development in the concluding section.

Curriculum cultures, definitions and understandings

Noting the ‘absolute dearth of discussion on the origins of curriculum’, Hamilton (1989, 8) recalls that it originally referred to the ‘entire multi-year course followed by each student, not to any shorter pedagogic unit … [where] different elements of an educational course [were] treated as all-of-a-piece [expressing] both structural wholeness and sequential completeness’ and he reminds us that the Latin word curriculum, meaning a race or racetrack, was introduced into the English language on the grounds that ‘a “curriculum” should not only be followed, it should also be completed’. This resulted in a greater sense of external control at a time when ‘teaching and learning became more open to external scrutiny and control … and schools were being opened up to a much wider section of society’ (Hamilton 1989, 49).

When preceded by the definite article this reification of curriculum results in a general understanding of the curriculum as a list of topics, as something to be ‘delivered [and as] a means to given ends’ (Carr and Kemmis 1986, 35). Grundy (1987, 20) describes such ends in terms of an ‘educand … who has learnt what we set out to teach’ in an environment where we ‘control both the learning environment and the learner’, where ‘educators talk of classroom management [which] consists of rules, procedures and unquestionable truths’ and where ‘one of the key words is “objectives”’. In the language of French existentialist Christian philosopher, Gabriel Marcel (1949), the products of this system may be described as having an education rather than being educated.

Hamilton (1990, 3) remarks that ‘curriculum is a central concept in Anglo-Saxon (or English-speaking) educational studies’ where the primary aim is one of ‘helping students master the desired [learning] outcomes’ (Pantic and Wubbels 2012, 65), making ‘no systematic distinction between curricular “matter” and lesson “meaning”’ (Hopmann 2015, 16). Within this culture, knowledge is seen as value-free and comes packaged neatly in subject syllabus content. The main focus, in a context of increased state control, is on pre-determined learning outcomes, achieved through ‘monitorial instruction’ that is effective to the extent that students ‘know something’ or ‘are able to do it’ (Hopmann 2007, 115). This culture of techne seeks to ‘accomplish specific predetermined ends … [and] involves the skill to produce something that can be defined or conceived in advance’ (Stanley 2011, 212). It represents the triumph of the psychology of learning over Didaktik, in other words, ‘Edward L. Thorndike won, and John Dewey lost’ (Hopmann 2015, 17). Postman and Weingartner (1971), Stenhouse (1975), Knight (2001) and others have identified various concerns with predetermined learning outcomes, including:

• - the difficulty of reducing complex learning to precise statements predicting what the outcomes will be

• - humans tend not to plan ‘rationally’, and teachers begin their planning by thinking about how best to organise the content to fit the circumstances

• - whereas rational curriculum planning (RCP) maps an ‘elegant pathway from goals, to objectives, delivery, reception and so on … creativity, innovation and flexibility depend on there being slack, spaces or spare capacity in a system’ (Knight 2001, 374)

As curriculum theory became ‘increasingly concerned with subject matter specific content’ (Carr and Kemmis 1986, 15) the field of curriculum studies began to fragment. When Pinar (2004) identified the need to re-conceptualise curriculum his starting point was ‘currere’, the Latin infinitive form of the noun curriculum. This verb means ‘to run the course, or, in gerund form, the running of the course [which enables] students to study the relations between academic knowledge and life history in the interest of self-understanding and social reconstruction’ (Pinar 2004, 35). This approach, based on phronesis, the opposite of techne, ‘is employed for the realization of human well-being [and] the practical human competence to make decisions in situations that do not have pre-determined best outcomes’ (Stanley 2011, 213). From the perspective of academic knowledge it is particularly noteworthy that acedia (commonly understood as sloth or restlessness) denotes ‘idleness' in Kierkegaard's sense of a ‘despairing refusal to be onself' while the converse, rather than being busy, is ‘man's (sic) happy and cheerful affirmation of his own being' (Pieper 1957, 41).

Whereas the re-conceptualisation of curriculum as ‘currere’ is generally associated with Pinar (2011), it should be noted that Dewey’s philosophy of pragmatism (Menand 2001) was influenced by Bildung (Garrison 2007). Within the culture of Bildung, the task of the teacher is ‘to enable students to “come to form” in terms of their individual and social potential’ (Stanley 2011, 214). Since the required educational experiences cannot be determined precisely in advance, ‘the end-means distinction proves to be an illusion … and [the Bildung] conception of the means/end relationship is consistent with Dewey's “end-in-view” approach’ (Stanley 2011). Indeed, according to Wraga (2016, 103), this understanding of curriculum in terms of students’ experiences ‘was widely held in the historic field of curriculum development’. Dismissing curriculum scholars’ depiction of ‘Tyler’s rationale as inherently and irrefragably linear’, Wraga (2016, 100–101) points out that, in his highly influential Basic principles of curriculum and instruction, Tyler (1949) proposes that teachers’ lesson plans, including both behavioural and non-behavioural objectives, should address students’ needs and place their experiences at the centre and suggests that ‘the Tyler rationale is better understood not as an iteration of managerial efficiency, but as a manifestation of American pragmatism in education’. Furthermore he goes on to suggest that precursor curriculum theorists such as Bobbitt (1924) and Taba (1932), generally regarded as behaviourists, also saw curriculum in terms of learners’ experiences.³

Didaktik, the Continental version of progressive education, is derived from Bildung and influenced by Herbart’s concerns with order, sequence and choice. Wishing to avoid the dangers posed by rapid modernisation and industrialisation, it regards the child as a natural learner. According to Hopmann (2007, 114), while ‘there are almost innumerable variations [of Didaktik] available’, they all share ‘the three sine qua non’s of Didaktik, namely, an irreducible commitment to Bildung, a founding belief in the educative difference of matter and meaning, and a strong conviction that teaching and learning are necessarily autonomous activities’ (Hopmann 2007, 121). This latter insistence on accountability means there can be no Didaktik where the pattern is fixed in advance ‘while knowing that it can always turn out completely differently from what was intended’ (Hopmann 2007, 117).

Having introduced the alternative to our inherited culture and some of the many complexities associated with the conceptualisation of curriculum, let’s now consider Irish definitions and understandings.

Definitions and understandings of curriculum in Ireland

While everyday social and professional discourse includes frequent reference to ‘the curriculum’ and ‘curriculum reform’, consensus regarding the meaning of curriculum (Marsh 1997) is difficult to find, with definitions ranging from ‘course of studies’ or ‘syllabus content’ to all planned educational experiences to the entire experience of schooling including the ‘hidden curriculum’. The ‘official’ definition of curriculum according to Rules and Programmes for Secondary Schools (Department of Education and Science 2004, 4) is ‘the list of those subjects in which instruction is given to the pupils … in courses approved by the Minister’ – in other words, an anthology of subjects.⁴ According to De Bhaldraithe’s dictionary the Irish language equivalent is cúrsa léinn (course of study⁵), replaced by curaclam around 1962.⁶ Although the 1980 White Paper includes a more enlightened definition of curriculum as ‘the totality of learning experiences to which the pupil is exposed’ (Department of Education 1980, 43), it quickly adds that, ‘for the purposes of this chapter … curriculum will be taken to mean simply the range of subjects, with their individual syllabi, that are approved for study’. Mulcahy (1981, 56) highlights the failure to seek curriculum coherence, ‘to show how the aims of a particular subject tie up with the overall aims of the Intermediate and Leaving Certificate syllabuses respectively’. Meanwhile, McKernan (1991, 171) notes ‘the unshakeable belief in subjects as the curriculum’ in context where ‘teachers and the educational community are generally confronted by a bald list of required and approved subjects with their syllabuses and examination requirements’ (OECD 1991, 91).

The Report of the OECD Examiners (1991, 68) observed that the Irish ‘secondary level curriculum is a derivation from the Classical Humanist tradition with an overlay of technological subjects and a leavening of the curriculum projects’. Under the influence of ‘human capital theory, informed by … technical functionalism’ (Drudy and Lynch 1993, 214), Irish education has become increasingly focused on technical knowledge and skills in an environment where education discourse became increasingly ‘coterminous with the theme of education and the economy [to the exclusion of themes such as] cultural identity, language, civic competence and moral development’ (Hannan and Boyle 1987, 164). Various scholars have bemoaned our general disregard for educational aims and our failure to develop a philosophy of education, e.g.

While In Our Schools⁷ represents the only complete official curriculum statement of any substance since the 1960s … as yet there has not emerged an official view of the curriculum which is sufficiently well developed, coherent and imaginative to provide a basis for policy-making. (Mulcahy 1989, 95)

The general aims of secondary education seem to be so taken for granted, or its values so deeply institutionalised, as not to require articulation or justification. (Hannan and Shortall 1991, 16)

The Interim Curriculum and Examinations Board (CEB) (1986) did attempt to address these lacunae at a time when the notion of curriculum as a selection from the culture was gaining traction (Lawton 1986). However, as Granville would recall (Gleeson 2010, 160) the field of culture was regarded ‘as too big to enter’ at a time when there was ‘tension within the CEB between a “right-wing economic philosophy” and a “left-wing socio-educational orientation”’. The outcome was a ‘very truncated version of curriculum as a cultural manifestation’ (Gleeson 2010, 160 ) in the Board’s final report, In Our Schools (Interim CEB, 1986). The Education Green Paper (Department of Education 1992) eschewed philosophical issues (McCormack 1992; Long 2008), while the National Education Convention left curriculum matters to the NCCA.

The closest we get to a definition of curriculum in the Education White Paper (DES 1995, 19) is included as one of the ‘operating principles’ of primary education: ‘the term “curriculum” encompasses the content, structure and processes of teaching and learning, which the school provides in accordance with its educational objectives and values’. Meanwhile, the associated ‘Philosophical Framework/Rationale for Educational Policy and Practice’ recognises the duty of the State to promote ‘the full, holistic and lifelong development of the person [and] the centrality of our intellectual heritage' (DES, 1995, 8) and ‘the centrality of our intellectual and cultural heritage’ (DES 1995) and the ‘unique learning needs’ (DES1995, 7) of each individual. It locates the learner ‘at the centre of the educational process’ and sees high quality learning in terms of ‘the quality of the curriculum, teaching and assessment and the quality of teachers in schools’ (DES 1995, 9; author’s italics). This White Paper stipulates that the State should ‘develop rigorous procedures for the evaluation of educational effectiveness and outcomes’ (DES 1995, 9) since education is a major beneficiary of Government spending. Meanwhile, the chapter dedicated to second-level education simply contains statements of curricular principles such as: curriculum breadth and balance; relevance; quality; continuity and progression; coherence. The ensuing Education Act (Government of Ireland 1998) (Section 30) offers a minimalist, traditional, definition of curriculum, stating that ‘the Minister shall prescribe the curriculum for recognised schools [including] the subjects to be offered, the syllabus and associated instruction time for each subject and the guidance and counselling provision’.

In summary then, reified treatment of the curriculum is clearly evident in Rules and Programmes, the 1998 Education Act and related commentary. While treatment of curriculum in both Education White Papers goes beyond content to include the students’ learning experiences, the prevailing discourse of techne, as evidenced in a focus on the curriculum, is hardly surprising given our allegiance to Anglo-Saxon/American curriculum culture. Recognising that this latter culture is ‘characterized by an overemphasis on teaching techniques, standardized testing, and outcomes-based education linked to a narrow, vocational, and corporate model [that] miseducates our youth and helps perpetuate a dysfunctional and anti-democratic social order’ (Stanley 2011, 211), we now move on to consider our approach to curriculum reform.

Curriculum reform in Ireland

Goodson’s (2001) three main phases of curriculum change provide a valuable lens for consideration of Irish reform efforts – the school-based internal phase, the external mandating phase and his ‘new millennium’ compromise. Teacher and school-based curriculum developments (internal phase), mostly undocumented, were supported by the regional Teachers’ Centres⁸ which received little support from the Department of Education. Structured curriculum development was limited to a small number of agencies particularly the City of Dublin VEC’s Curriculum Development Unit (CDU) and Shannon Curriculum Development Centre (SCDC).⁹ While Department officials were happy to show these Centres off to international visitors, they generally saw them as being of little relevance (Gleeson 2010). Former Director of the CDU, Trant (1992) sums up their counter-cultural achievements in the title of his PhD thesis, ‘The power of the provisional’. Although these agencies would be supplanted with the establishment of the NCCA, they were at their most effective (see McNamara, Williams, and Herron 1990) during the Transition from School to Work projects (1979-1987) and the introduction of Vocational Preparation and Training (VPT) courses. Both of these EU-funded initiatives, often referred to as curriculum innovations, exemplify what O’Sullivan (1992) calls the influence of cultural strangers on education policy. Irish curriculum reform, which mostly falls into the externally mandated category, is considered now under appropriate sub-headings.

The early days: Department of Education

Immediately after Independence, primary-level curriculum reforms focused on national identifiers such as Irish language and Catholic religion (Walsh 2012). During the 1960s, influenced by the Plowden Report in England (Burke and Fontes 1986), younger members of the Primary Inspectorate and a Dublin-based Teachers’ Study Group championed primary curriculum reform in response to the dominance of the 3Rs and the narrow focus of school inspections (Coolahan 1981). This work would result in the drafting of the progressivist, child-centred, Curaclam na Bunscoile (Department of Education 1971) and the Department of Education sought responses from various interest groups, with some schools being invited to pilot particular subjects (Hyland and Milne 1992). Its production at such an early stage amidst much fanfare in two glossy, hard-bound volumes running to more than 700 pages suggests a naïve attitude towards the complexity of curriculum change. Public debate was limited, and the intended professional development programme, predicated on a ‘cascade model’ of dissemination using Teachers’ Centres, was discontinued due to cutbacks arising from the Oil Crisis. There is no doubt however that its portrayal of children as active constructors of knowledge rather than receptors of information, together with the abolition of the Primary Certificate examination, represented a significant shift in Irish curriculum thinking, with the OECD (1991, 65) recognising that ‘the very production of this important document marked a new direction for educational thought and practice in Ireland’.

During the early days of Independence, secondary schools had freedom as regards choice of programmes and books, while examinations were not based on prescribed texts and payment by results was abandoned (Coolahan 1986). However, when Taoiseach Éamon de Valera suggested in 1937 that the secondary school programme was ‘too narrow and too vague’, this heralded a return to prescribed texts. Syllabus committees were established in 1965, chaired and controlled by members of the Inspectorate, and including representatives of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) and school management. In conversation with the author a senior member of the Inspectorate (Gleeson 2010) described these committees as ‘secretive’ and primarily concerned with ‘empire building’, with most decisions being carried through by the relevant subject Inspector, while eacher representatives at Leaving Certificate level were in awe of the university professors. He also recalled that the subsequent introduction of Subject Associations was ‘bitterly opposed by members of the Inspectorate who regarded them as pressure groups’.

Notwithstanding the progressive developments at primary level, the Department eschewed calls for post-primary curriculum reform while regarding curriculum development agencies as marginal (OECD 1991; Gleeson 2010). Against this background the report of the Commission on the Intermediate Certificate Examination (ICE) (Department of Education 1975) would propose the introduction of school-based assessment on the grounds that:

• - Our dependency on public examinations reflected a notable lack of confidence in the professional ability of teachers to decide what to teach and how to teach it

• - The assessment system should do justice to the wide diversity of situations following on from the raising of the school leaving age and the revision of the primary curriculum

• - Teachers from different schools should be encouraged to engage collaboratively in curriculum development.

This resulted in the publication of the Public Examinations Evaluation Project (PEEP)¹⁰ which concluded that, ‘subject to suitable provision for in-service training and adequate statistical back-up from research and statistical services’, the school-based assessment proposal developed by the Moderation and Educational Assessment Service (MEAS) was feasible and ‘teachers will be prepared to move in this direction’ (Heywood, McGuinness, and Murphy 1980, ii). However, as McGuinness (1991, 175) would later recall, while ‘the ICE Report was highly relevant … the biggest problem was actually getting someone to accept it’.

Externally mandated curriculum reform is seen in terms of the production of a document that is ‘put in place’ and ‘delivered’ rather than in terms of implementation strategies and/or pedagogical change. In this environment, the role of the teacher is one of syllabus implementation. The Directors of both the CDU and SCDC would recall that it was commonplace during the 1970s for senior members of the Department Inspectorate to ask: “and when will you have finished developing the curriculum?” (Gleeson 2010, 101). Notwithstanding the progressivist thinking of Curaclam na Bunscoile, teachers generally endorsed the rhetoric of the document ‘while practising a more formal pedagogical style’ (Sugrue 1997, 25). Walsh (2016, 10) concludes that its implementation was hindered by various practical constraints including ‘a mismatch between curriculum provisions and parental expectations, poor provision for teacher in-service training, and the lack of alignment between school design and proposed methodologies [with the result that its] principles and content did not become common practice in classrooms’. As Callan (2006, 203), Director of the School and Curriculum Development initiative remarked, many recent ‘curriculum initiatives are premised on the conception of curriculum as “content” or “course” as contained in a “text” or “document” … [with] attention on … curriculum construction [and] matters such as content selection, course construction and assessment matters’.

Interim Curriculum and Examinations Board and non-statutory NCCA

Given the ineptitude of official decision-making structures in responding to societal needs, the 1981 Fine Gael/Labour Programme for Government included a commitment to establish an independent Curriculum and Examinations Board, whose terms of reference would include school-based assessment. As Logan and O’Reilly (1985, 475) put it, this initiative had the potential ‘to broaden the social base of decision-making so that the process of selecting knowledge, skill or experience for inclusion on the national curriculum will address the common good’. In the politically unstable environment of the early eighties, the Interim Curriculum and Examinations Board (CEB) would eventually be established when Fine Gael/Labour returned to government in 1983. During its three-year existence the Board published innovative and challenging discussion papers as a stimulus for curriculum debate and reform. This was a particularly unstable period in Irish politics however, and, following yet another change of government, the Interim Board was replaced by the non-statutory NCCA in 1987. This body afforded the nominated representatives of key stakeholders including teacher union and school management nominees the opportunity to engage in curriculum policymaking and design on the national stage. However, notwithstanding the merits of partnership, the Council’s effectiveness was hindered by its representational nature and by practising teachers’ low levels of engagement with substantive curriculum policy issues other than assessment (Gleeson 2010).

Following the raising of the school leaving age in 1967 (Harford (Ed), 2018), junior cycle curriculum remained unchanged (Gleeson 2018) for some 20 years and the NCCA’s first task was development of the Junior Certificate. Given the influence of Anglo-Saxon/American curriculum culture, this involved the preparation of new subject syllabi by Course Committees that were constituted on a representational basis. Granville’s (1994, 67) study reported that Course Committee members gave themselves ‘low ratings … in the area of curriculum development’, with 95 per cent ‘never or rarely experiencing conflict between their personal views and those of their nominating body … [indicating] a degree of conformity that might inhibit the introduction of innovative ideas and initiatives’ (Granville’s 1994, 83). Junior Certificate subject syllabi included comprehensive objectives and made provision for continuous assessment. However, due to teacher union opposition the latter plans were stillborn while provision for teacher professional development was totally inadequate (Gleeson 2010) in the wake of the recession of the eighties. The net effect was that Junior Certificate would resemble a Mickey Mouse rather than a Trojan horse initiative (Gleeson 1989). Some 10 years later the OECD (1991, 56) Examiners noted the ‘mismatch between the stated goals of education and the declared needs for substantial structural change on the one hand and substantial areas of school practice on the other’ in a context where ‘reliance on didactic instruction alone will not accomplish the tremendous educational tasks that lie ahead’ (OECD 1991, 75).

When the aforementioned Teachers’ Centres were re-designated as Education Centres in the Education White Paper (DES 1995, 141), the facilitators of ground-up (Goodson’s Phase 1) curriculum change became the handmaidens of the DES in the ‘delivery’ of Phase 2 (Goodson) curriculum reforms. They were now allocated generous budgets for ‘a major building programme and the employment of full-time personnel [to] provide a focus for development programmes for teachers, parents and boards of management’ in the rollout of new reforms.

Statutory NCCA

When the Education Act (Government of Ireland 1998) conferred statutory status on the NCCA, the resulting extended remit and increased funding (Gleeson 2010) enabled empirical and school-based research as well as wide-reaching consultation with stakeholders using discussion papers, surveys, focus groups and regional seminars. Whereas teacher union nominees had exerted enormous influence during the non-statutory phase, the statutory Council operates on a broader, more evidence-informed and independent footing. For example, its senior cycle consultative document (NCCA 2003, 1) would note that education was failing ‘to meet the needs of all students, to treat students equitably, to reward different kinds of achievement and support independent self-directed learning’. Its subsequent proposals for senior cycle reform (NCCA 2004) challenged the culture of post-primary schools and encouraged students to take on more responsibility for their own learning. However, although then Education Minister, Mary Hanafin TD, would acknowledge¹¹ that the NCCA ‘have come up with various imaginative [Leaving Certificate] reforms’, she rejected what she called their ‘Rolls Royce option’ on the grounds that the ‘Leaving Cert is an independent, objective assessment that is well regarded internationally. People have great confidence in it, and we should not undermine it’ (interview with Sean Flynn, Irish Times, 18 January 2006).

The Council’s next major undertaking was to revisit junior cycle curriculum and the associated discussion paper, Innovation and Identity (NCCA 2010), drew heavily on a commissioned longitudinal study of the experience of a cohort of second-level students over the whole of their post-primary experience (Smyth 2009). These findings informed the Council’s re-imagining of junior cycle curriculum, with schools as ‘centres of innovation and change’ and teachers as ‘key agents and drivers of change’ (NCCA 2010, 15–16). The NCCA¹² would go on to develop other important Discussion Papers, most recently revisiting senior cycle curriculum where the focus of the associated consultation (Smyth, McCoy, and Banks 2019) was on stakeholders’ perceptions of curriculum purpose and their concerns regarding student wellbeing, inclusion and assessment as well as structural issues such as pathways, flexibility and reporting arrangements. It is fair to say then that the statutory NCCA has succeeded in broadening the nature and scope of curriculum decision-making beyond the nominated members of its representational Council and Course Committees (nowadays known as Development Groups). Two particularly interesting outcomes of this approach are now considered:

• - Framework for the Junior Cycle (DES 2015)

• - Leading and supporting change in schools (NCCA, undated).

Framework for the Junior Cycle

Use of the term ‘Framework’ was a feature of the Education White Paper, while the Revised Primary Curriculum (DES 1999, 26) was portrayed in terms of ‘a national framework that defines [appropriate] learning outcomes’. This development marked a significant departure from the discourse of programmes and subject syllabi. Following the aforementioned junior cycle consultative document (NCCA 2010), the NCCA (2011) set out its vision, values and principles in Towards a Framework for Junior Cycle – Innovation and Identity. DES (2012, 2015) then published two Framework for Junior Cycle documents,¹³ based on Towards a Framework (NCCA, 2011). These Frameworks incorporated Education White Paper (DES 1995, 47) principles that should ‘underpin curricular development at second level’ including

• - curriculum breadth, holistic development (key skills, well-being)

• - curriculum balance among the diverse aspects of the curriculum (wide range of subject options, short courses)

• - coherence in the form of connections between various educational experiences (statements of learning, key skills).

The current Framework (DES 2015, 26) marks another step in the evolution of NCCA’s approach to curriculum reform, indicating that Rules and Programme for Secondary Schools will ‘be reviewed and/or replaced [and that] in the interim, the curriculum will mean the programme that a school provides so as to comply with the [Framework’s] principles, statements of learning and key skills’. Implementation of this Framework is the responsibility of the Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT) whose Deputy Director, Flood (2014, 108) observes that JCT is ‘underpinned by … a decade of research into the experience of second level students in Irish schools’. Whereas fragmentation between design, implementation and assessment was problematic during curriculum reform efforts such as Junior Certificate (Gleeson 2010), inter-agency collaboration is a strong feature of the seminal Junior Cycle Reform Joint Statement on Principles and Implementation agreed by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland, Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, Department of Education and Skills (2015):

… the [JCT] support service will enable teachers to use the NCCA standards collaboratively. (2015, ii)

… the NCCA and the SEC will be requested to work in close collaboration to ensure that the examinations assess a broad range of knowledge, skills and competences. (2015, 3)

The JCT programme is characterised by a strong emphasis on student learning outcomes and key skills.The programme's unprecedented levels of intensity emphasise the perceived importance of pedagogy, with Kirk (2013, 93–94), Director of JCT, assuring us that:

All teachers will be provided with the opportunity to engage with no less than three full days of CPD during school time across the roll out of their particular subject area … [as well as] some in-school teacher-led sessions for which the DES will provide appropriate substitution cover.

Having experienced the dominant culture of expository teaching and instruction during the development of Senior Certificate programmes (Gleeson 1990), and subsequently as a teacher educator (Gleeson 2012) who frequently visited schools, the author recognises the significance of JCT’s emphasis on active learning.

Notwithstanding these positive developments however, the frequent references in the Framework to skills and competences are a cause of some concern, with Kirk (2018/9, 26) suggesting that ‘the shift to a learning-outcomes-based specification is perhaps one of the most significant changes at classroom level … written in terms of learners and their development rather than what is to be taught’. This focus on pre-determined skills and competences, redolent of an enduring focus on education for human capital, is indicative of the present-day influence of market forces in the context of globalisation (Gleeson, Klenowski, and Looney 2020).

A key principle of the Framework (DES 2015, 7) is that schools should have greater flexibility to design programmes that are suited to the needs of their junior cycle students [where] each school’s programme will be guided by the 24 statements of learning, 8 principles and 8 key skills that are at the core of the new Junior Cycle. Whereas this Framework made provision for a core curriculum of three subjects (English, Irish, Mathematics) alongside these key skills and statements of learning, the Minister for Education and Skills, in response to media pressure and in an environment where successive governments’ approach to education policy has been characterised by populism (Gleeson 2010), clearly departed from these underlying principles when adding a fourth subject, History,¹⁴ to the core. Given that four of the aforementioned statements of learning are directly relevant to historical understanding and skills, the Minister’s intervention of September 2019 clearly and tellingly undermined the efforts of the NCCA to move beyond subjects and content to skills and student learning. It is also noteworthy that, notwithstanding the Framework’s assertion ‘that no single assessment event can provide evidence of the full range of student achievement [and that] the state-certified examination is just one element of a balanced, broader approach to assessment of junior cycle students’ (DES 2015, 35), the media and everyday educational discourse are replete with references to the ‘Junior Certificate examination’. Plus ca change!

Leading and supporting change in schools

This NCCA (undated¹⁵) Discussion Paper clearly signalled a high level of awareness of the complexity of achieving sustainable curriculum change. Published at the height of a recession, it may not have been afforded the attention it deserves at the time. The clear focus is on curriculum change rather than reform and the frequent references to international research evidence are indicative of the NCCA’s evidence-based approach. There is recognition that reforms put ‘in place’ by administrators generally result in superficial change, whereas deep, meaningful change is a complex process rather than a once-off ‘launch’ type event. The paper recognises the importance of clarity of purpose and of providing the necessary conditions for change. At a time when the Chief Inspector of the day frequently repeated the mantra that ‘we simply need to learn how to manage change’, it debunks the great illusion that ‘change is controllable [and] amenable to an input-output model’ (NCCA undated, 13), and emphasises the importance of distributed leadership. This resonates with Rudduck’s (1991, 32) plea that we should ‘try to see change not as a technical problem but as a cultural problem and … stop talking just about the management of change … and start talking instead about the meaning of change’.

The Discussion Paper recognises that change involves a journey rather than a blueprint (Fullan 2016), one that has to be taken by individuals, with vision and strategic planning coming later. This involves ‘changing the culture of schools as places of learning and organisations’ and challenges ‘teachers’ fundamental beliefs, dispositions and habits’ (NCCA undated, 14) using strategies that are ‘agile and responsive’ (NCCA undated, 15). Being key agents in the change process, teachers are faced with the dilemma of reconciling the intentions of the policymakers – what Fullan (2016) calls the objective meaning of change – with their own subjective perspectives from within the ‘classroom press’. These latter perspectives include attachment to familiar pedagogical routines (Eisner 1992) grounded in the ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie 1975). It recognises that successful engagement with change involves a combination of decentralised and centralised and of intrinsic and external factors in an environment where ‘imposed change is bitterly resented and voluntary change is threatening and confusing [and where] people adjust to the near occasion of change by changing as little as possible’ (Fullan 1991, 36).

As noted by Eisner (1992, 618) ‘it is much easier to change educational policy than to change the ways in which schools function’. Being ‘robust, bureaucratic institutions’ (Miller 2003), schools must engage with ‘conservative student, parent and community expectations regarding the function of schools’ (Eisner 1992, 617). As Lynch (1989, 124) reminds us from an Irish perspective, education ‘matters most to those who gain most from it … namely the middle classes. They have learned the educational formula by rote, it is in their interests that it does not change. As a power group[they] are well positioned to have their interests defined as the public interest in education’. NCCA (undated, 13ff) identifies a number of principles for leading and supporting change, suggesting that ‘it is more appropriate … to think in terms of teachers as professionals and schools as places of learning being continuously supported in the process of change and evolving in their engagement with key elements of educational change’. It portrays teachers and school management as the ‘gatekeepers of policy change [who] should be closely involved in the policy development process’ (NCCA undated, 16).

Since the ‘real agenda involves changing the culture of institutions rather than implementing single innovations’ (Fullan 2016, 91), it is not possible to mandate change. Hord (1995) reports that, when teachers are confronted with change, more than 50 per cent of them do not proceed beyond the ‘survival’ (management) stage to consideration of student outcomes, collaboration with colleagues or improvements. Using Hord’s Concerns Based Adoption Model instrument with Irish junior cycle teachers, Byrne and Prendergast (2020, 298) found ‘that unresolved self and task concerns may have stopped the transition to impact concerns [and that] teachers still harbour significant concerns even several years after the implementation’.

Many of the NCCA (undated) ideas regarding the leadership of change, such as the devolution of greater autonomy and flexibility to schools, are now incorporated in the Junior Cycle Framework with its commitment to ‘foster learner engagement’ (Teachers’ Union of Ireland, Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, Department of Education and Skills 2015, 3), while the current Action Plan for Education (DES 2019) is titled Empowering through learning. The JCT’s strong commitment to teacher professional development and learner-centred strategies (a prominent feature of its website) represents an acknowledgement of the complexity of substantive curriculum change. More recent curriculum frameworks are underpinned by ‘the concept of teachers and school leaders as “curriculum makers”’ (NCCA 2020, 4) and Priestley (2018, 154) theorises curriculum making as ‘occurring across multiple sites, in interaction and intersection with one another, in often unpredictable and context-specific ways, producing unique social practices, in constant and complex interplay, wherein power flows in non-linear ways, thus blurring boundaries between these multiple sites’. This increasingly common acknowledgement of the notion of curriculum complexity (see Knight 2001; Wood and Butt 2014) brings us back to the contrasting curriculum cultures introduced earlier.

Evolution of a hybrid curriculum culture

With its emphasis on techne as against phronesis, Irish curriculum policy and practice provides ample evidence for the influence of Anglo-Saxon/ American curriculum culture. While the Interim CEB focused, during its brief existence, on macro curriculum issues such as selection from the culture, breadth and balance, elements of learning and curriculum continuity, the terms of reference of the non-statutory NCCA specified issues such as curriculum aims/objectives, structure/scope, syllabus/course content, and pupil assessment. The prevailing structural fragmentation meant that the NCCA had responsibility for most of these areas with the State Examinations Commission dealing with student assessment and the DES in charge of implementation (Gleeson 2010). This separation of powers is consistent with the Anglo-Saxon/American culture where curriculum reform concentrates on content and objectives as distinct from the pedagogy necessary to achieving these objectives (Stanley 2011).

However, although references to the curriculum as noun/document, as well as the interchangeable use of reform and change, remain commonplace in Irish curriculum discourse, it is important to acknowledge that curriculum thinking has evolved considerably. As noted earlier the statutory NCCA recognises the complexity of curriculum change and the limitations of top-down reform with obvious implications for problematic managerial discourse such as ‘managing change’, ‘the launch’, and ‘putting reforms in place’. There has been a shift away from traditional definitions and understandings as exemplified by the conjunctive treatment of curriculum and assessment (author’s italics) in the Framework for Junior Cycle and by the focus on student learning and school/teacher autonomy rather than school subjects and top-down prescription. Meanwhile, recently revised Leaving Certificate subject syllabi employ the discourse of curriculum specifications, learning outcomes and key skills (NCCA 2008) while the NCCA (2019) Senior Cycle Review document talks of ‘curriculum/ curricular components’ without a single reference to the curriculum.

In this evolving context, the JCT involves unprecedented levels of collaboration between the NCCA and the DES while promoting progressive principles such as curriculum coherence, teacher empowerment, constructivist pedagogy and active student engagement in learning. Meanwhile, from a policy-making perspective, due to new strategies and structures that facilitate listening, the NCCA Council and its various committees are now informed by the wider education community, engagement with relevant research, and collaboration with teachers and schools. This resembles Elliott’s (1998, 35) ‘middle way’ and Goodson’s (2001, 54) third phase involving re-negotiation of ‘the balance of internal and external forces [since] neither teacher-driven nor state-driven change appears to work’.

Notwithstanding, however, the broad welcome for many of the proposed changes to Irish junior and senior cycle curricula, the original version of the Junior Cycle Framework (DES 2012), which included many of the characteristics of Didaktik, encountered strong opposition from the teacher unions (Gleeson, Klenowski, and Looney 2020). Meanwhile, some recent commentary in the Irish Times reflects the overriding influence of Anglo-Saxon/American curriculum cultural influences.

I support the teachers in their request that the full range of syllabus documentation including depth of treatment, teachers’ notes, examination specification etc. should be officially published at the same time as the syllabus itself under the aegis of the Department of Education. (Emeritus Professor of Education Áine Hyland, Letters, January 20, 2020)

I have been an active observer and supporter of science teaching in Irish schools since 1978 … The proposed minimalist specifications for the Leaving Certificate science subjects leave much to be desired as satisfactory and workable curriculum documents … Teachers need a detailed syllabus, like the ones currently used, in order to teach effectively – this includes detailed content specification, depth of treatment for ordinary and higher level, suggested or mandatory experiments, as well as clearly stated learning outcomes (Dr. Peter Childs, Letters, 28 January, 2020)

Returning to teach in Ireland was wonderful. A solid, substantial [Science] curriculum with fair and rigorous exams. Students understood basic scientific concepts at the end of their Junior Cert … . It is with great dismay that I now am witness to the dismantling of this very good and solid curriculum and the importation of a very flawed new one. (Catherine O’Mahony, Letters, December 12, 2019)

…  teachers are very critical of the new Junior Cycle syllabus and feel that “students are floundering around in a fog” (Breda O’Brien, Opinion and Analysis, January 18, 2020)

The tone of such correspondence is indicative of a mentality that favours scripted curriculum, notwithstanding its many limitations (Fitz and Nikolaidis 2020; Aukerman and Chambers Schuldt 2017) and its thinking is in sharp contrast with the German situation¹⁶ where curriculum content is deemed

educative only when interpreted by teachers who are directed in their work by the aim of Bildung … [and where] subject matter is simply a tool that enables the development of the learner’s individuality [and where] its real meaning(s) emerge in the meeting of a unique individual with the particular subject matter. (Pantic and Wubbels 2012, 65)

Within this Didaktik tradition ‘it is the individual teacher who nurtures the self-formation that is at the heart of Bildung’ (Westbury 2000, 31), with these teachers enjoying ‘“pedagogical freedom” to ask what the learning topic/subject could or should signify to the learner and to plan lessons accordingly. Westbury (2000, 17) contrasts teachers working in an Anglo-American culture as employees who are expected to ‘implement’ the curriculum with teachers in the Didaktik tradition who are ‘guaranteed professional autonomy’ and for whom teaching without spiritual and character formation is not teaching at all.

The latter approach is redolent of Trant’s (1992) understanding of curriculum as the meaning of the good life and of many features of the Junior Cycle Framework, particularly the requirement that, by 2020, schools devote 400 hours to Wellbeing (over three years), a development that is certainly in keeping with Didaktik curriculum culture. The same can be said of the educational principles of the Transition Year programme (Jeffers 2008), with its emphasis on formation and maturation. At the same time however, the hybrid nature of our current curriculum culture is reflected in a growing emphasis on skills,¹⁷ competences and pre-determined learning outcomes. These latter features are indicative of an Anglo-Saxon/American curriculum culture where RCP is seen as a ‘common sense’ approach that epitomises classical scientific method.

As noted by Knight (2001, 372), RCP ‘assumes a determinate and linear universe in which the specialnesses of setting are irritants that science should rise above … [and that] fits well with the managerialisms that have been sent to the public sector and … plays well as a populist political position’. In explaining his process model, Stenhouse (1975), influenced by Bruner’s (1960) Man: A Course of Study, argues that pre-determined learning outcomes, a key feature of managerialism, are appropriate in the case of skills training and instruction in knowledge while being clearly incompatible with the induction of students into disciplinary knowledge. Some fundamental pedagogical principles of this model are that the ‘teacher ought to be a critic, not a marker … [that] assessment is about the teaching of self-assessment … [that it is] committed to teacher development … [and that it] rests on teacher judgement rather than on teacher direction’ (Bruner 1960, 95ff).

Concluding remarks

The influences of the global education reform movement (Sahlberg 2006), neo-liberal ideologies (Ball 2012; Luke 2006) and the Bologna Declaration (Gleeson 2013; Gleeson, Lynch, and McCormack 2021) are associated with educational globalisation (Gleeson, Klenowski, and Looney 2020) and Anglo-Saxon/American curriculum culture. As Deng (2018, 706) reminds us, Didaktik ‘provides a viable alternative to the OECD’s discourse on twenty-first century competencies’. Meanwhile, Hopmann (2007, 120) believes that ‘the uniqueness of professional teaching gets lost in the one-sided focus on generalised competencies’ and suggests that teachers are delusional if they think they can exercise substantial autonomy when the sequence of lesson content is dictated by prescribed competence-based curricula. This simply creates an environment where teacher accountability is limited to plugging

gaps in the competence chain [and constitutes] nothing more than an attempt … to nail jelly to the wall. All that gets stuck is the nail, the test, which in this case represents the yardstick, which then unabashedly becomes the actual goal of teaching. (Hopmann 2015, 18)

From an Irish perspective, 45 years on from the ICE Report, this view of accountability is increasingly open to question in an environment where the recent debate around the Framework for Junior Cycle was hijacked by assessment issues and where the meaning of Leaving Certificate achievement is increasingly defined in terms of CAO points totals rather than grades with clearly defined meanings that are awarded in individual subjects.

In an environment where the evolution of Irish curriculum culture has resulted in a hybrid of Anglo-Saxon-American and Didaktik cultures, our experience of implementing the Framework for Junior Cycle will determine the extent to which that Framework is rhetoric or reality. One notes that the associated DES (2018) Circular Letter defines junior cycle requirements in terms of subjects, short courses and Wellbeing. This letter, which includes only a passing reference to statements of learning and key skills, the most innovative aspects of the Framework, is remiscent of the Minister’s addition of History to the core. However, the biggest obstacle to changing Irish curriculum culture is the Established Leaving Certificate, the Holy Grail of Irish education. Populist coverage of these terminal examinations in the print media has reached a level that was recently described as ‘exceptional’ by a team of researchers from the Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment and Queen’s University Belfast (see O’Donoghue, Gleeson, and McCormack 2017). During COVID19, media coverage of the 2020 Calculated Grades system, which epitomises our ongoing obsession with governance by numbers (Grek 2009), focused entirely on points totals scores and student progression to further and higher education.

So, against that background, where do we go from here? Drawing on stakeholder data, the current NCCA (2019, 5) review of senior cycle comes down, understandably, on the side of ‘growth and development rather than radical overhaul … evolution not revolution’. A more serious re-appraisal of our inherited Anglo-Saxon/American curriculum culture might begin with a module called ‘Watch your Language’ followed by a critical analysis of features such as performativity, pre-determined learning outcomes, transmission-based pedagogy, and our futile attempts to ‘nail jelly to the wall’.

Acknowledgement

The author is grateful to his former colleague and student, Dr Orla McCormack, School of Education, University of Limerick, for her constructive observations regarding an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks also to the reviewers for their helpful advice concerning the sequencing of paper content.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

Jim Gleeson

Dr. Jim Gleeson is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Education, Dublin City University. After five years as a post-primary teacher, he worked as an independent curriculum evaluator, Project Leader at Shannon Curriculum Development Centre, and NCCA Development Officer for Leaving Certificate Applied. As a teacher educator at University of Limerick he held various positions, including Head of Department and teacher education nominee on the Teaching Council. Jim was appointed to the Chair of Identity and Curriculum at Australian Catholic University, Brisbane, in 2011. His main research interests include education and curriculum policy and practice, teacher development and professionalism, and faith-based education.

Notes

1 Example of policy borrowing.

2 From Greek didaktikos meaning ‘apt at teaching’.

3 For example: Education is the process of growing up in the right way. The objectives are the goals of growth. The pupil's activities and experiences are the steps which make up his journey toward these goals … [they] are the curriculum (Bobbitt 1924, 44).

The curriculum cannot be regarded as dead and summative  …  . It is a living whole, comprised of experience actually going on in school … Its content is identical to the content of the actual experience of the learners (Taba 1932, 156).

4 As noted by former Deputy Chief Inspector Sean MacChárthaigh in consultation with the author.

5 Rather like the French cours d’etude.

6 Council of Education report on secondary education.

7 The final report of the Interim Curriculum Examinations Board.

8 The paucity of research literature on these Centres is indicative of the general disinterest in school and teacher-based curriculum development at that time.

9 As well as a small number of Vocational Education Committees.

10 Following the establishment of the Moderation and Educational Assessment Service (MEAS).

11 Irish Times interview with Sean Flynn, 18 January 2006.

12 See NCCA (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010).

13 Minister Ruairi Quinn states in his introduction to the DES (2012) Framework it ‘presents more detailed and very different assessment arrangements to complement and support the sort of curricular change that will best suit our students’. These arrangements would lead to huge opposition from the relevant teacher unions (see Gleeson, Klenowski, Looney. 2020).

14 History was one of seven core Intermediate/Junior Certificate subjects in secondary but not in vocational school prior to the publication of the Framework.

15 Listed in NCCA’s publications for 1999.

16 While content (Lehrplan) selection is a matter for the state, the management of education is a matter for individual schools (Westbury 2000).

17 Returning to my earlier focus on language, one notes the changing nomenclature for our national Education Ministry – from Department of Education (1924–1997), Department of Education and Science (1997–2010), Department for Education and Skills (2010)