Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

We all aspire to something that is noble. To hold the office of Minister for Education and Science is a noble aspiration for many Members and some of us, fortunately, have managed to achieve it. Noble aspirations, therefore, are achieved and I am confident they will be achieved in the future.

It is interesting to note with regard to class size in OECD reports that outcomes in other countries are no better. Quality of education is equally important. Those with the smallest class sizes have not necessarily achieved the highest results either in PISA or in the literacy and numeracy report that we launched last year, where schools with very small classes had, unfortunately, severe literacy and numeracy problems. Exterior conditions, such as family and community conditions, did not facilitate learning outcomes. It is a wider matter than just class size, despite the progress we are making and will continue to make.

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