Professor Tom Collins:

I agree with everything the Deputy has said in that it is a quality programme. It was formerly a problem - I am not sure of the current figures - that disadvantaged children were less likely to do it than the better-off children. Notwithstanding that, a lot of the work has been done on transition year. Dr. Gerry Jeffers, in Maynooth, for instance has done a major evaluation and has given a positive assessment of it. The risk with tying it into the leaving certificate is that it would kill all of that. That is the real risk to the possibilities for creativity and wandering outside of narrow instrumental purposes. If that is assessed, unless it is through the formative method we talked about earlier, it might change the character of the programme somewhat. I am interested in the concept of portfolios. Students can come out of transition year with a portfolio of achievement. That is something they can take with them to various places and is something they can look back on as a composite statement about themselves. I do not at all doubt the educational value of what the programme is doing. If it is used for summative assessment in the way we have approached summative assessment to date, I would be afraid that the entire aesthetic of the programme would be sacrificed in the context of the assessment protocols.