Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There were some attempts in that regard but they got stalled for different reasons. That is history. I was persuaded very much by the breadth and depth of the most recent comprehensive recommendations from the National Council for Curriculum Assessment, NCCA, which were discussed in the Seanad and in the Dáil, with positive contributions from the vast majority of people who spoke. The difficulty was how to free up the curriculum, remove from it the backwash effect of the leaving certificate and the race for points, and achieve the kind of character, personality and skills formation the curriculum aspires to. Within the Department, we were considering implementing the recommendations of the NCCA and came to the conclusion that the best way to do it would be to remove the sword of Damocles, which was the junior certificate State examination, at the end of third year.

From the beginning of September in third year one was preparing for the examination which was seen as a dress rehearsal for the leaving certificate examination. The simple, radical decision recommended to me, about which I thought for some time and for which I opted, was based on the fact that countries and regions, the educational output and achievements of which we admire, such as Finland, Scotland, New Zealand and Queensland in Australia had no high stakes state examination at the age of 15 years. It is not considered desirable for children to leave school at that age and, therefore, it is believed they should not need a state examination reference at that point.

The approach open to us was to remove the State examination. I will refer to the examination system we are putting in its place. Children will leave primary school and make the difficult transition to first year, at the end of which they will make their choice of subjects. They will choose a minimum of eight and a maximum of ten, on which they will undergo an examination at the end of third year. The assessment will be in two parts. Some 40% of the marks will be awarded for project work in second and third years, with 60% being awarded in the examination. There will be transitional arrangements. In the first instance, the State Examinations Commission will set the examination papers' questions, but students will be assessed in third year in the same way that students are assessed in second year, that is, by their schoolteacher.

The two components will have two other legs attached such that at the end of third year - around September, as is customary - parents will get the total result. Parents will get the results of the two parts. The examination papers are to be marked by the teachers, as examination papers would be marked at the end of fifth year. Results will be obtained in the last of the literacy and numeracy tests from second year. These will complement the primary school tests in second, fourth and sixth classes. It will be a much more clinical assessment of ability and the period in question will come very close to the PISA period. At 15 years of age, on average, one will take the PISA examination.

The fourth and final component of the comprehensive assessment concerns all of the non-classroom-related facts a teacher will tell a parent about his or her son or daughter. It will concern the child's personality and his or her interpersonal, musical, performance, sports and debating abilities. I refer to all of the qualities which together make up a young emerging adult. Employers keep telling us they want staff who can stand up and make a presentation, work in a group and do all the tasks that are now characteristic of the modern workplace. We have moved far from the Fordist concept of one being an assembler of widgets on a moving conveyor belt that involves human interaction only at tea break.

Consider the question of when this proposal will be implemented. I am very conscious of the interference in the education system in Britain and the short-termism of political parties, including the Labour Party and the current Tory Government. We cannot turn this line around very quickly; we must have the confidence of the people thereon and bring the teaching community with us. We must maintain the trust of the parents. In Ireland, where we have undermined trust in so many institutions, there is still 100% trust in the integrity of the examinations. I am very conscious of this and have discussed the matter with Cabinet colleagues, as the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation will testify. We want to move slowly. The first cohort to start the new junior cycle will enter second level in September 2014, but it will be 2017 before they experience the new examination structure for English. In the remaining three years, to 2020, the balance of the curriculum will be rolled out.

For the first time ever in our history, both pre-independence and post-independence history, we will be inviting schools to start to devise term one for the ten subjects, creating two short courses. The courses should reflect the students' community, be it an agricultural community, a fishing community in north-west Mayo or a community in an inner-city area. A course could be devised that resonates with the life experience and daily experience of students. The NCCA is already providing a menu of short courses - I believe there are seven - but we will open up the path whereby a local community can, if it wants, devise a course that is relevant to the reality of its school.

Mr. Tony Donohoe of IBEC may very well engage with members. At an IBEC function last week I invited businesses, particularly small and predominantly Irish ones rather than large multinationals, to consider the concept of embracing a local school, not just by way of giving money for a piece of equipment but by having a structured system of embracement. When children pass by an industrial estate on their way to school, all they see are the security guards. Why does a local company not have an open day for first year students? In first year the pupil is adjusting to a new life and is a young adult. As in a game of snakes and ladders, the first year student goes to the bottom of the pile and is surrounded by adults in sixth year. First year students, when they were in sixth class, were surrounded by tiny tots in junior infants.

In second year, company staff should be sent to the school to describe their jobs, skills, the subjects they utilise, the subjects they did in school, what they learned and did not learn and the subjects they would do again. This would build a structured relationship that would facilitate pupils in seeking work experience in transition year. In many parts of the country the work experience placement is totally informal and depends utterly on whom one knows and the access one has to a range of employers. This does not work for most people, particularly those who need work experience the most. IBEC is happy about my proposal and will explore it, as is Mr. Clive Byrne, the director of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals. I refer to second level schools, not primary schools, as the latter involve a different relationship. The idea would not be appropriate for primary schools. There are 723 post-primary schools. Heaven knows how many businesses there are. In typical towns in the middle of County Meath or Ballina, where there may be three or four significant employers that engage significantly in the community, we should start to explore my proposal which resonates a little with the German approach to vocational education. There are approximately 250 recognised apprenticeship trades and an automatic assumption that one moves in and out of a working world.

The final point relates to third level. Former Minister Batt O'Keeffe asked Dr. Colin Hunt to carry out a major review of third level education, which resulted in the Hunt report. The landscape document was analysed by the Higher Education Authority which invited all third level institutions, which total more than 30, to envisage their position in a new landscape for third level education. Last week or the week before the committee heard presentations by representatives of the institutes of technology. There are seven universities plus the DIT, 14 institutes of technology and a number of other colleges within the CAO system. The system is not owned or run by the State. It is crowd control for the registrars of universities, as it was rather inelegantly described by one commentator. The organisation has allowed all of the non-university colleges to participate but on its terms and conditions. The allocation of points according to leaving certificate results is carried out entirely by the CAO which is owned by the seven universities.

There was a criticism of the impact of the points system on second level education. I will return to this issue before I finish my outline of the position in respect of the third level education system. I was asked whether, if we started from scratch, today's configuration would be the result. There are eight universities - the DIT is de factoa university - and 14 institutes of technology. When the regional technical colleges were established following the investment in education by the OECD, transportation, communications and information technology were a pale shadow of what they are today. We certainly would not set up 14 institutes of technology today, given access, movement and transport considerations.

The institutions have been asked to consider their future direction. As all of this information is available, I will not take up time describing it, but members who are interested may check the record.

However, we are asking third level institutions, on a pragmatic and practical basis and having regard to the reality of getting people to work and collaborate together, to examine how best they can cluster on a regional basis and how best they can complement one another's array of services and courses offered to the learning community at third level. This is with a view to getting synergies and amalgamations in some cases, as well as getting an elimination of duplication or of having undergraduate courses in two institutions but having the postgraduate course in a single institution.

Moreover, it is with a view to setting up ways in which there is a better sharing of information across the system. For example, I spoke of the 19 locations in which one can pursue initial teacher education and although we are not entirely sure, we think there are approximately 40 different courses in engineering in the Irish system. Another example is the question of whether three business schools are needed in Dublin or whether the business schools can complement one another and have specialisation within a confederation of three business schools or whatever. One lesson we all know from the 1960s is that forced amalgamations do not work in any kind of organisation. Consequently, I am trying to encourage, from a bottom-up perspective, colleges to come together, to share resources and to co-operate with one another. That is the carrot but ultimately, the stick is the national cheque-book for third level financing. I hope that by this time next year, I will be looking at the structured response from the institutions and the Higher Education Authority's response to that offering and that the Department will be making recommendations or encouraging proposals in that area.

This brings me to the end of what I wished to say. This is the long road to the kind of educational space in which we must be to have the workforce we require. However, this does not meet today's labour market needs or shortages and I refer to the demand worldwide for information communications and technology, ICT, skills. I believe the Minister, Deputy Bruton, may have indicated to the joint committee on another occasion that there is a worldwide shortage. There are 5 million job opportunities within the European Union for people with ICT skills. In response to the crisis in the construction sector, we have provided, through the ICT conversion programme, 5,000 places in respect of ICT upskilling. For example, Springboard, which is one programme that has been mobilised, has a participation rate whereby 65% of the participants have honours degrees in their primary discipline. Typically, this may involve a quantity surveyor with those numeracy skills moving sideways from the construction sector into ICT skills that can be redeployed. I can provide the joint committee with details on how this has been working. However, what is of critical importance to those who participate is that the placement rate, once they have re-equipped themselves, is extremely high. In a nutshell, that essentially is the present position in respect of education. I apologise if my contribution was somewhat longer but the picture is deeper.