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

I have never lost trust in the teachers and teaching profession, institutionally and from a personal point of view, having had three children of different abilities who have gone through the education system. I say this respectfully as a matter of record rather than opinion. The two secondary school or post-primary teaching unions have been opposed in principle to any change in this area for the past 25 years. The other stakeholders in this narrow space have engaged and have welcomed it in varying forms and sought clarification. I agree with the point made by Senator Power about getting resources into it. Resources will be needed to move to the system and it will be a challenge to get them. We are talking about over 350,000 young people in the junior or senior cycles. If we can engage in the detail of its implementation, I am open and flexible about the best way to implement it. It is difficult to deal with people who say they are opposed to this in principle and will not engage. When we look for participating schools through the NCCA to act as explorers of how it would be implemented, we sought 40 schools and got offers from 120 of the 730 schools in the system. Different management bodies and different groups expressed interest, along with concerns about how it might work, what is needed and the implications. These are all normal things and questions will continue to arise on matters we have not fully anticipated, coming from this starting point. We will engage, as is the normal way of doing business. Unfortunately, we are not in that place where we could start to explore those points. I slowed down the implementation because of the concerns about resources.

Senator Healy Eames referred to concerns about short courses. There are problems about that and we have made them non-compulsory. Given everything else that was happening, it was an additional burden and concern for management bodies and representative school leaders.