Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)

I thank the gentlemen for being here today. I apologise for missing the beginning. I was caught elsewhere but I got to tune in to their opening statements as they were speaking while I was running and I have a fair idea of what they are coming to us with.

I will start by saying I am very much in favour of reform. I am very much in favour of enhanced continuous assessment. I will start with Mr. Ó Caoimh, somewhat following on from Mr. Gillespie's point about the likes of maths and how we could make it work. My view is that there should be far more continuous assessment and there should have been for a long time. I remember doing my leaving cert vividly. It is not awfully long ago. When I went into university, in one of my very first economics lectures they told me to forget how I had been taught and learned in the past because we had not really been taught critical thinking or analytical skills. It was rote learning. Mr. Jones said he is a biology teacher. I studied arts, humanities and law. I still vividly remember the definition of osmosis because I had to learn it off for the exam. I cannot explain it to Mr. Jones but I know what it is and I have so many examples of that across so many subjects.

Mr. Ó Caoimh has done the leaving certificate, which is good to know. In what subjects would continuous assessment work much better and at a higher level? For example, I did history and we had the research study report, at 20%. Are there subjects where, like that, continuous assessment could be better, as opposed to subjects such as maths that, as Mr. Gillespie said, might not work? Does Mr. Ó Caoimh have any thoughts on that?