Ten years after the Hyland Report: achievements so far and future challenges

Ten years ago this author presented a paper at the annual conference of the Irish Science Teachers’ Association (ISTA) entitled “The design of Leaving Certificate science curriculum: an international comparison”. At that time the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) had introduced a new curriculum for Junior Cycle which was challenging for students and teachers because of its vagueness and lack of clarity. The template which the NCCA had used to design the subject syllabi consisted only of themes and learning outcomes and teachers were concerned that the same template would be used to design new Leaving Certificate syllabi. The paper presented by this author in 2014 (subsequently referred to as the Hyland report) looked at curriculum design in various English speaking
jurisdictions around the world but failed to find even one example of the syllabus design being used by the NCCA. This author cautioned against using the Junior Cycle template for new or revised Leaving Cert subjects.