Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

On leaving certificate reform, as the Senator said, it is really about taking the pressure off students and taking the focus away from an exam at the end of two years. There are 28 subjects which already have an additional assessment component so it is not completely new. This is about applying it to every single subject. A lot of work has been done to prepare for this. Much of the change has already happened. The new transition year programme has 60,000 people taking it. There were far fewer many years ago. There are students in special education schools and classes that are now doing specific exams or where the level 1 and level 2 are being rolled out to make sure they are being treated equally to their peers and that they will have results in exams at the same time as everybody else. There are seven subjects being introduced this year with the two new subjects which makes nine overall and then there are the other tranches. With any of the subject changes, whether it is engineering or otherwise, the work is being done through a technical committee that has looked at it and made recommendations with the input of representatives from the engineering body on the committee.

It is based on that work and engagement that recommendations come to me, as Minister. Obviously those changes are taking place. As I said, tranche 2 is going to come to a committee next week and will come to me after that. This has been discussed at length with representatives from all of the different areas and they, in turn, made recommendations as to what it looks like. Overall, the overwhelming response from everybody, including teachers, is that this is welcome and that it is going to help in the context of the different skills and needs of students and also of the workforce and the changing environment in which we are living. That is why it is being introduced, for no reason other than to support our young people and to assist them to prepare for future life and for the workforce and the different skills and abilities they might need and everybody agrees with that. The work that has been done with the teacher associations to date has been on a package of measures to try to assist and support them with the roll-out, which they have already agreed.

In terms of the small schools pilot project, it is a programme for Government commitment to enhance and expand that. To date, the feedback has been extremely positive from any of the schools that have taken part in it. We have seen some really great ideas, like clustering hours to create a viable post within the schools where it does not exist. That is now used across the system so we are already seeing areas where the pilots have produced something that is positive and that is being applied elsewhere. It is proposed to extend the pilot but that requires resources. Obviously, we need to make sure that we have those resources to do that. We will have a further evaluation to inform any future policy on this. We are all really clear that we need to protect our smaller rural schools so that they are not just viable but we can enhance and grow them. Some schools that had a decrease in numbers have, through support and measures like this, seen their numbers increase and they are now growing and that is our objective.

On absenteeism, the work that is being done is about making sure we support schools and students who need the most targeted support. The change to our Education (Welfare) Act is supporting schools to identify information they have that might assist in changing the dynamic in the school. A multimedia campaign will be rolled out this September to highlight the basics and why it is important to be in school. It will focus on parents, students and teachers as well. We need to continue to invest in the education welfare service, expanding the number of education welfare officers that we have and making sure that we have more school completion programmes right across the school estate. We also want to increase the number of people working in that area. We have to make sure this is embedded as a priority from early childhood onwards. Some of the measures we have taken, including the pilot I mentioned earlier, Anseo, are already working. In some schools Anseo has had a transformational impact. The more schools we can roll it out to, the better, and the greater the impact we can have overall.