Religious education will be examined for the first time in the Junior Certificate in 2003. The curriculum is currently being printed and will be introduced on a pilot basis to 50 schools next September.

The following year, a further 150 schools will join the pilot and from 2002, the programme will be available to all schools.

The new programme, which was developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, is designed to `provide students with a framework for encountering and engaging with the variety of religious traditions in Ireland and elsewhere. Such a framework would also prepare students for the Leaving Certificate course in religious education."

The aim is to promote an understanding and appreciation of why people believe, as well as tolerance and respect for values and beliefs for all. The course makes particular reference to the Christian tradition, acknowledging the unique role of this tradition and its denominational expressions in Irish life.

It also includes a section on major world religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam or Judaism). The aims are to explore a major world religion and to examine the impact of this religion on its followers today and on other individuals and communities.

The curriculum is split into two parts with students, in part one, taking any two of the following topics: communities of faith; foundations of religion - Christianity; foundations of religion - major world religions. In part two, students take all three sections: the question of faith; the celebration of faith; the moral challenge.

A Leaving Cert syllabus is being developed and it is envisaged this will be available to those students who sit the Junior Cert religious education exam in 2003.

A new primary-school curriculum, spanning six curricular areas (language, mathematics, social, environmental and scientific education, arts education, physical education and social, personal and health education), was published last week, replacing the "new curriculum" of 1971.

The seventh major curricular area for primary students, namely religion, was not included, as the Department of Education and Science, in the context of the Education Act (1998), recognises the rights of the different church authorities to design curricula in religious education at primary level and to supervise their teaching and implementation.

In schools with a Catholic ethos, the "Children of God" series was first introduced in 1976. A revised edition was phased into the schools in the mid-to-late 1980s. The third version of the programme was introduced to junior infant classes in 1996 as the "Alive-O" series and, this year, the second-class programme will be launched on October 7th.

A revised programme for senior classes is being devised with the new junior cycle curriculum in mind. Father Sean Melody, director of Veritas, says that far from religious education lagging behind the new primary-school curriculum, the principles which underlie it are being welcomed and introduced, in an ongoing manner, into the whole area of religious education at primary level.