Michael Conaghan (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms McManus and recognise her many years of devoted service in all the various initiatives in which she has been involved. Something struck me when she was speaking. She would have noticed an education system that was static for a long time, with various established norms of evaluation and criteria for assessment. Now the world has changed so dramatically and obviously the education system must also change to reflect that. In that changing world, establishing norms and modes of assessment that have trust and credibility and are understood is a major challenge because it all happened rather quickly. How does Ms McManus think we managed that change and that challenge? Like the previous speaker, despite all the initiatives and the importance of the education system, I want to mention arts in education, particularly in the primary school. There are five beautifully written sections in the curriculum about the importance of arts in the formation of young people, the importance of performance, the discipline of learning instruments and expression but, in general, we have performed very poorly in delivering it, unlike geography, history or mathematics. It has almost been left outside the classroom door. Those enrichments that it can bring are a big gap in the formation of young people's lives. Has Ms McManus any thoughts on that and how it could be addressed?