WorldWise Global Schools: Baseline Research Consultancy

This report documents research conducted with principals and deputy principals of Irish Post-Primary schools and NGOs in Spring 2013 to explore the experiences and opinions about development education from the perspective of schools. We map the current development education activities and networks evident in the participating Irish post-primary schools and identify the key obstacles, opportunities and supports for development education, before discussing the broader implications for the sector. We highlight how institutional and cultural levels of support are key to ensuring that development education becomes an ‘organic…part of the culture of the school’. Other approaches to development education include an individualised model that tends to dilute power and focus on the commitment of individual teachers and students. The cross-curricular nature of development education poses particular challenges and opportunities in the current structure of the post-primary curriculum, examinations system, ownership structures, broader educational system and society. This research provides strategic insights about where extensive and intensive development education integration in schools is happening and where it is less visible or struggling for visibility. We explore the conditions for development education integration to successfully occur and the drivers of change required to enable it to be sustained in the longer term