Ms Moira Leydon:

Go raibh maith agat a chomhghleacaí. I fully understand members are busy; after all, this is their workplace.

The ASTI appreciates the opportunity to be present. It welcomes the space the meeting affords the teaching profession to communicate its views to legislators. That is something we value and we would like to think it will be sustained into the future. It is not something every other organisation enjoys. It is very important that we communicate that message. I know that the committee has received our submission, but members may not have had an opportunity to read it in detail. The two core messages are that there must be more richness in our assessment and that there must be a greater spread of the assessment load across the school year, but we must also ensure the State examinations are assessed by the State Examinations Commission. That is the only way we can have the quality assurance and control the system has enjoyed to date. They are the two key message in our submission.

In the time available to me I wish to make two or three points. This discussion is actually timely because 2018 marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the commission on the points system which, as members know, was a seminal event in looking at assessment and examinations in our system. The commission made a number of recommendations, two of which are germane to our discussion. First, it strongly argued for the retention of external assessment for the leaving certificate examinations but equally strongly recommended that more diverse modes of assessment be introduced to supplement the written examinations. Since the publication of the report in 2001, all of the reviews of the subject and programmes that have taken place have heeded that recommendation. For example, in the case of Irish and modern foreign languages, there are oral and aural examinations which form part of the overall mark in the junior and leaving certificate examinations. There is project work in the case of history and geography. In the case of home economics, students get to demonstrate that they can cook as part of the examination. In the practical subjects of music, art, technology and science there are practical and performance tasks to be performed. The practical assessment for leaving certificate science subjects will come on stream. Therefore, in the case of practical work which is spread over time, there is continuous assessment under the examination system. When the assessment is for the purposes of the State examinations, it is not conducted by the teacher but by the State Examinations Commission. That system has merit and stability, but more to the point and most important from the point of view of education, there is quality control. It is objective, fair and transparent.

State examinations are meant to tell society a number of things, core among which is that they tell the student and his or her family how he or she has progressed in his or her learning, but they are also tell society how individuals and the system as a whole are progressing. The view of the ASTI has always been, since time immemorial, that because of the role played by the State examinations, the assessment must remain located in the State Examinations Commission.

By international standards, we have a high performing education system. The last PISA, programme for international student assessment, report found that of the 37 OECD countries, Ireland was third in literacy levels, which is really amazing when we are being compared with countries that have hundreds of times the population of Ireland. Ireland was 13th in the case of science and mathematics. By international evidence, we have a high performing education system with good quality control.