Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the contributors for a fascinating and important debate. Last night I had the privilege of being part of a judging panel with young people in the Rotary Club of Newbridge to choose ambassadors for all the values that define the Rotary Foundation to go forward to a national final. I was incredibly struck by all of the young people. They were engaging and effective global citizens to borrow the phrase that Dr. Smyth used earlier. I have been reflecting on that while I have been listening to the debate and I have been thinking about those young people.

Apart from knowledge and having the opportunity to engage in a lot of different and relevant topics and apart from the importance of language and literacy, fluency is hugely important. We see that time after time. While to a certain extent leaving certificate exams examine a certain amount of written fluency, apart from language subjects fluency is not really measured.

I contend that is hugely important, as is very valuable group work. Ms Costello mentioned the importance of group work to moving into the working environment. When we think about it, the leaving certificate, as it stands, is a very individual assessment. It is very important to be able to work as part of a team on projects, either at work or in our communities and families. I am interested in getting some feedback from the witnesses on what they think about the importance of how we assess group work. Should it be part of what do as we go forward?

Work experience was touched on. Other members will have heard me speak previously about the importance I attach to work experience undertaken during transition year but it is not really measured. Many young people find it very difficult to get relevant work experience unless their families have a network. That work experience is hugely important to how young people define what kind of study or work they would like to go into afterwards. It is very important for all the witnesses, and the interests they represent, to acknowledge that we need a far better system. Some chambers and local enterprise offices, LEOs, are quite good but we need a more formalised structure. I am interested in the witnesses' views on that.

Teachers are in a dilemma. So much of what we are talking about focuses on excellent teaching yet we have a situation where teachers are judged by the points their young students attain. A comment was made earlier about the fact that there is sometimes criticism if teachers are not completely focusing their students on exams. How do we get around that? It is very important. The Gates Foundation spent approximately $500 million in the United States on looking at this issue and trying to support very important, empowering, effective teaching that gets away from teachers being measured by the exam results their students get.

It is good to see Mr. Donohoe again. He spoke about the leaving certificate being as responsive as possible to current market trends and lifelong learning. I absolutely agree. How do we build that into a system in a way that needs to be continuous? We are spending 13 weeks, which is a significant amount of time, on this very important topic but we cannot do that every year when it comes to current market trends. How do we build our reaction to, and support of, market trends so we do not have to come back and spend 13 weeks examining, listening and making recommendations?