APG conclude public health inquiry with final oral evidence session

On Monday (22 January), the Northern Ireland All Party Group (APG) on Reducing Harm Related to Gambling met for the thirteenth and final oral evidence session of its inquiry into public health approaches to tackling gambling-related harms. The group heard evidence from Raymond Caldwell, Director of Curriculum and Assessment, Department of Education and Noeleen McGreer, Programme Manager for Mathematics and Numeracy in the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA).

Raymond’s presentation recognised the crucial role that education and curriculum development can play in tackling societal issues such as gambling related harm. He highlighted that gambling harm is addressed in the curriculum through teaching on gambling, gaming, and financial capability across several areas of the curriculum.

He acknowledged however, that unlike issue areas like alcohol and drugs, gambling is not part of the statutory curriculum and therefore schools are given a high degree of autonomy in terms of how they choose to work it into the curriculum, meaning it is in practice up to the individual schools whether children are made aware of gambling related harms.

This concludes the evidence-gathering portion of the APG's inquiry. A subsequent inquiry report will be published in due course, and will make recommendations to the Northern Ireland Executive on the next phase of gambling reforms.