Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations and the useful written submissions made by the organisations represented today and several other organisations. It is important that the committee feeds into the work being done on the leaving certificate examination by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. I share the concerns expressed by previous speakers about the stress experienced by young people. The leaving certificate places great emphasis on the final written examination. As Ms Leydon and Ms Irwin stated, there is also an element of assessment in the oral examinations and so forth but it is primarily based on the final written examination. This approach places severe pressure on young people, especially those who are not particularly strong in written examinations. The system should be modified to make it fairer to young people with different skills, for example, co-operative and critical thinking skills. How can we advance this objective?

I have history in this area as I have sat across a table from some of the witnesses. I know the teaching unions must negotiate on behalf of their members. I had a particularly interesting experience working with the higher education sector on modifying grading systems and so forth. I am interested in hearing the views of the teaching unions on the new grading systems for the leaving certificate.

The recently introduced junior cycle reforms were negotiated. I am interested in how teachers, students and parents are responding to these changes. I remember attending a meeting in Kilkenny facilitated by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment in the 2000s while serving as an opposition spokesperson on education. Representatives of the Irish Second-Level Students Union to which Mr. Hassan referred attended and provided feedback from second level school students. We have not made much progress in the intervening years. How do we move forward and reduce the severe pressure on school pupils? I do not know what the witnesses' views are but I find league tables appalling. We need to move away from measuring schools' success on the basis of the percentage of students who progress to higher education because there are many other pathways available to school leavers.

In its written submission, the Irish Universities Association refers to mitigating risks and ensuring continuous assessment has robust criteria defined in sets of standardised but flexible rubrics. It also refers to making learning and teaching outcomes visible for students, staff and parents and making teaching and learning accountable. It notes that a terminal examination system can be shrouded in secrecy and normative assessment. I presume this is the point Deputy Funchion was making when she argued that people from certain backgrounds have an advantage in written examinations.

All of us, from all backgrounds, agree that we need to modify the system in some way to reduce pressure on students and achieve formative results of assessment and focus on engaging with students in the learning process. This may not be primarily the examination function of assessment, if one likes, but we need to be able to offer feedback to students. The NCCA's written submission refers to processes and outcomes of learning. Rather than judging young people, education is supposed to be about the process of learning and facilitating young people to become lifelong learners. These may be somewhat abstract points. How can we move forward to achieve something better for all students, not only those who are good at written examinations or can afford to pay for grinds or repeat the leaving certificate?