Professor Tom Collins:

I am happy that Senator Pauline O'Reilly raised the issue of high achievers. I would prefer to refer to people as "high achievers" rather than "gifted". The gifted population is really important but pretty small. On high achievers, the Senator has raised a really interesting point.

In the Centre for Assessment Research, Policy and Practice in Education, CARPE, in DCU, we carried out research in which we examined some of the reasons why Ireland, in studies such as PISA, is listed as having a lower proportion of students at the highest level of achievement than other countries that, on average, achieve the same as Ireland. We have fewer people than are predicted for us at the highest level of achievement. Part of the story comprises what we do with our 15-year-olds in school, the tasks and the nature of the learning we ask them to engage in. These are difficult to disentangle but I strongly suspect that what we do at the end of post-primary education has a big impact, even at 15 years of age, on not getting high achievers to the point where they should be. They are not achieving what they should.