Dr. Joseph Ryan:

I thank the Deputy for his question. I will be brief to allow other colleagues in. We are certainly not proposing to attack the leaving certificate and say it is all bad. There is much that is good in the leaving certificate. I fully agree with the Deputy that it would be very helpful if the NCCA report was published. We would have a much more informed discussion if we had that.

I used to teach in third level. At one stage, we had people coming in from second level who were very able students, but we had to put in remedial work at the start of first year just to get them into that. It had to do with differing learning styles. I talked recently to the parent of a very bright child in third level who said he or she was finding it very difficult. Again, it was that dislocation or the question of a different style. To put it quite frankly, our leaving certificate tends to be quite traditional in its way. The world is fast-moving and that is where the focus needs to be over the next period.