Professor Tom Collins:

On the Senator's first question, it is useful to distinguish between formative and summative assessment. It is highly desirable that children, right up to leaving certificate level, would self-assess and peer-assess. Feedback from peers is a key part of the formative processes of assessment. Even learning how to manage feedback is itself an important part of that process.

The Senator asked a question about third level education which I addressed in my opening statement. Third level entry overwhelms second level and the senior cycle. I will go back to the earlier question of whether the process is fair. It is conducted fairly but we need to distinguish between the fair management of a process, on the one hand, and the outcomes, on the other. If we can predict the outcomes years before the examinations happen, which we can on the basis of socioeconomic background, then we know that the outcomes are not fair. That assumes a huge significance if those outcomes determine entry into third level education. It is not just gaining access that is at issue; it is also about gaining access to prestige courses, high earning programmes and the most desirable professional opportunities. For instance, if second level examination outcome is determining those routes, it means that entire geographic areas may well be disproportionately denied access to professions like medicine, law and veterinary. Entry into these professions is highly competitive but if the Dáil constituencies were to be reviewed and if it was found that the proportion of those doing medicine varied significantly from one constituency to another based on the socioeconomic structure of that constituency, then the Senator is answering his own question as to whether it is fair.

We need to find a different method for third level entry other than the second level exam. If we do not find that different method, then the possibilities for change in upper second level education and for change to the exam become hugely constrained. Michael Sandel, a professor of philosophy at Harvard University, wrote about this recently. He favours the notion of a lottery because he says that every other system will be gamed by the better off.