I find the education sector endlessly fascinating, particularly the way it manages to generate initiatives that seem to make absolutely no sense. Droichead, for example, makes no sense at all, but I will come back to that. For now, let’s look at the Primary Language Curriculum, released in 2016.

The Primary Language Curriculum, or PLC to those in the know, actually began life in 2011, only a few years after the 1999 English curriculum had already needed fixing. The issue then was that the strands made no sense. Nobody could explain them, never mind plan from them. The revised version simplified things to reading, writing, and oral language, which most teachers regarded as a clear improvement on phrases like “Receptiveness to language” and “Developing cognitive abilities through language”, terms that sounded impressive but meant very little in practice.

Then came PISA 2009.

Ireland’s results dipped, and Ruairí Quinn promptly abandoned calm reflection. What followed was Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life 2011–2020, which is why schools now produce School Self-Evaluation plans. Alongside this, it was decided that an entirely new literacy curriculum was required, and the NCCA were tasked with producing it.

The years that followed were chaotic. Allegations of systematic bullying emerged, up to half the team resigned, and in 2016 the Primary Language Curriculum was finally published to widespread bafflement. Its pages literally accordioned out. Teachers appeared to be expected to maintain detailed portfolios for every child using an opaque rubric that nobody could clearly interpret. It was rejected almost immediately, largely because nobody knew how to plan from it.

The PDST spent years trying to translate it, but the damage was done. Teachers adapted it quietly on the ground.

The best part comes at the end. In the 2012 PISA tests, Ireland bounced back near the top of the table, far too quickly for any of these plans to have made the slightest difference at all.