Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

We can overcome the challenges facing us notwithstanding the recruitment embargo. The national centre of excellence in the University of Limerick is doing a great deal of work in the area of continuing professional development to enable teachers to attain the required standard. In addition, there are conversion courses that can be done. In this way we can ensure we have a coterie of teachers with the right skill sets to help us to achieve our aims.

The question of how we got to this point is one that would have to be teased out over a longer time period than the two minutes I have. However, if we are open to the challenge, which we are, we must find out where we need to go.

Deputy Murphy raised valid issues about fragmentation, with which I agree. We must ensure there is standardisation across the board and that the Teaching Council and the individual boards of management are singing from the same hymn sheet in terms of what we need to achieve. However, I am confident that the Project Maths initiative, in spite of whatever hiccups it may have along the way, will ensure we can help the students currently achieving E, F and NG grades to move up the scale. I am less concerned about those currently achieving A, B and C grades. The introduction of bonus points for maths will facilitate those students who choose not to do honours maths because it is time consuming. They can devote more time to ordinary level maths and still get a reasonable number of points.

There will be a tender process for training and continuing professional development. We are engaging with industry and academia in this regard, but there are challenges. We will not turn the ship around within the next 12 months. However, we are engaging with the issue in a deeper fashion than heretofore. Based on the soundings I have taken outside of the usual advisory groups - I have delved into academia and sought the views of individual teachers - there is a sense that if we stay on track with Project Maths, we can tackle the qualitative and quantitative issues involved in getting grades up.

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