The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC), is the lead Government Department for cyber security in the State. The Department oversees the implementation of the National Cyber Security Strategy 2019-2024. A key theme of the Strategy is about developing the capacity of the State, research institutions, businesses, the public sector and of the people to both better understand and manage the nature of the challenges we face in this space. ln particular, measures 12 and 13 of the Strategy include actions on developing cyber security education and promoting female participation in cybersecurity.

Funded by the DECC, a team of teacher educators and researchers from the School of Education and School of Computer Science in UCD are working in collaboration with a steering group comprising members of the National Centre for Cyber Security (NCSC), the Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI), the NCCA and Cyber Ireland to design and implement a Junior Cycle short course on cyber security. The first phase of this project is to road test elements of the draft specification with a purposive sample of post-primary schools in Ireland.