Dr. Anne Looney:

I want to speak on the issue of the transition from second level to tertiary education. The Senator mentioned the full continuum of achievement and ability in an inclusive system. An aspiration of our system is to be more inclusive.

Let me outline something of note in thinking about the transition from second level to higher education. Apropos of something Senator Mullen said, I work in the higher education space and, as such, am programmed to say we do not have enough resources to do everything we need to do; however, the emergence in Ireland of the tertiary sector, the changes coming in further education and training, the emergence of the new technological universities, and some changes in the way universities are working, driven by the human capital initiative, mean there is quite a shake-up in the range of offerings in tertiary education and pathways into it. DCU is home to Ireland's largest access programme and it also has students who enter through further education and training programmes and based on mature-entry criteria. We focus so much on the race for a small number of programmes in one or two institutions that get coverage in one or two newspapers that people believe there is a race. The vast majority of students get the course they want or list as second. They are very happy and do not end up changing. I include the cohort who did not do a leaving certificate examination, in respect of whom we are led to believe the world will stop revolving. Their first-year examination results were pretty much the same as they would have got had they done the leaving certificate examinations. Therefore, there are changes happening here that would give me cause for optimism.

Our system is the subject of considerable international interest. We are inundated with educational tourists who want to know how we are doing so much so well, why our students stay in the system and why they are broadly happy with it. In all of the conversations, the educational tourists end up scratching their heads over the leaving certificate examination. Although they say we are doing so much to work with students and change our system regarding inclusiveness and that we have a high-quality teaching profession, they end up almost aghast at the leaving certificate examination, as if to ask why we have not managed to address it yet. I am certainly with the Senator in asking whether this is the time for breaking down some silos and leading on it. We could offer some insights that would have other countries examining what we are doing. We have the ingredients for it.