Professor Gordon Stobart:

My understanding, which may be wrong, is that teachers in Ireland say they do not want to examine their students. They are on the side of the students and want to teach their students, but they feel somebody else should examine them. I wonder if that needs some more investigation, partly because the teachers may then go off and examine other people's children. The notion that we separate teaching from assessment in that way may need some more investigation. Most cultures see a place for allowing teachers to make judgments. I think that feeds into that matriculation decoupling. If you have, as we do as part of the historic tradition, single subject examinations, it is very hard to introduce ideas like self-assessment or group contribution. Other systems have a much wider range. They are not reliant on single subject exams. The International Baccalaureate is one such example. There is a component of that that is about creativity, activity and service. It allows contributions in those areas to contribute to the certificate at the end. The same is true in the American system. You do not get into university simply on the basis of your points. You have to put in a lot more about your contributions, what you have done elsewhere, your teacher report and your grade point average from continuous assessment. That idea of broadening what is required to move on to tertiary education and the like allows these wider key skills to be brought into play. It will be the teachers who have to do that.