There are “widespread concerns” among those tasked with the redevelopment of the senior cycle curriculum about how the process is being carried out, the country’s largest second level teaching union has said.
There is a “disregard” for different opinions on what material Leaving Certificate subjects should contain and “significant tension” has arisen due to strict parameters put in place by the Minister for Education, the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) has said.
In the latest controversy to hit the curriculum review process, the union has now written to Hildegarde Naughton and to the National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NCCA) outlining its frustrations with the running of curriculum development groups.
The NCCA runs development groups for 17 Leaving Cert subjects. These groups comprise teachers, union representatives, academics and Department of Education staff among others. Their work informs the development and sign-off on new curriculums and exam specifications.
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However, frustration has been expressed by several members of the development groups about the handling of their feedback.
This month Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, associate professor of mathematics education at DCU, announced she had resigned from the maths development group because she did not want to be associated with draft courses that were “incoherent and mathematically inaccurate”.
[ The Irish Times view on Leaving Cert reform: implementation should be paused Opens in new window ]
Linda Kelly, ASTI general secretary-designate, has now written to NCCA chief executive Arlene Forster to outline the concerns of ASTI members on these groups and to request an “urgent meeting”.
“These [concerns] ranged from a lack of clarity and transparency as to how group chairs were selected, lack of transparency and information sharing regarding the NCCA consultation processes and a disregard for the views of group members when they dissented from an established NCCA position,” Kelly said.
Kelly also wrote to Naughton, saying ASTI members were concerned about how they could “meet their mandate of independently advising the Minister when much of the parameters set by department officials are set out as immovable parameters which subject development groups must adhere to”.
She said these constrictions were “creating significant tension”.
In the case of maths, she said the “directive of a 180-hour curriculum” for the subject “fails to acknowledge that current tuition time for maths is often in excess of 240 hours”.
The directive that maths must also have a 40 per cent additional assessment component is a “significant issue” and without being addressed could result in a solution that “will simply not be fit for purpose”.
The Minister is considering these points before replying to ASTI, a Department of Education spokesperson said on Friday.
“Subject specifications are developed through the NCCA structures as the statutory agency responsible for developing the curriculum. Those structures are representative of the education partners and sector generally with the ASTI being one of those partners,” the spokesperson said.
“There are ASTI nominees on the NCCA and all relevant boards and development groups within its structures, including the Leaving Certificate mathematics group.”
The department also pointed to examples of where the views of experts had been listened to.
The NCCA said it would engage constructively with the ASTI and was organising a meeting.
Responding to allegations of a lack of transparency and a disregard for views that dissented from established positions, the spokesman said the processes for selecting a chairperson and establishing a brief for the group were approved by the NCCA council.
The NCCA council has 26 members, including representatives from all main trade unions in education.
The spokesman also said the NCCA “has continued to strengthen transparency in its consultation work in recent years”.
“Since September 2025, raw consultation feedback has been shared directly with development group members as it is received. This supports transparency and informed deliberation,” he said.
