Professor Michael O'Leary:

Absolutely, and I appreciate the opportunity because it has been said publicly that I may not be a neutral voice. I did not appreciate that. Prometric does not influence me in any way in what I say.

As for student involvement, Deputy Conway-Walsh is absolutely right that the devil is in the detail. I just wanted to get that into the conversation. I suspect that it would be very difficult for any democrat to argue that the students should not have some say in their own certification. Students are well able to self-assess. They would have to be given certain skills to self-assess better. There are also areas of the curriculum, which Professor Collins highlighted, that involve those skills that are just not easily assessed through exams or even assignments. I am thinking about things like collaborative problem solving and about how important that notion is. "Working with others" is listed as a key skill. The point I was trying to make in my submission is that teachers and students have a role to play here and that students should have some say. I am not saying the students should give themselves a grade for working with others, but they certainly could be involved in determining what the grade will be by providing the evidence and having a debate with their teachers.

The second point is that groups of teachers, not single teachers, should make those decisions. That would get away from the idea of a single teacher being responsible for the grade. Certain skills in schools are cross-curricular. The history teacher, the geography teacher, the maths teacher, the physics teacher, all the language teachers and all the science teachers see the students working with others and communicating. Let us say a student is doing six subjects in the leaving certificate. The teachers of those six subjects might sit down and make a collective judgment on that ability to work with others. I am also saying that that has to count for something. It cannot just be a token. It has to count for progression to third level, where working with others is a key skill people look for. I am not entirely sure about the exact detail of how this would play out but I wanted to present it as an idea for discussion.