Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The YES consultation process was launched in January 2004, when the discussion document, Your Education System, was published. The process has included a range of meetings, including 17 public meetings, at which people were invited to put forward their views on education. Written submissions were also invited by post and by e-mail. There has been a very considerable level of public participation in the process. For instance, in the region of 5,000 people have attended meetings and 300 contributions were e-mailed to the website for the process. A public attitudinal survey was conducted in June-July 2004.

Seven people have acted as trustees for the process in order to protect its integrity. Key elements of the process, including all reporting, the conduct of the public attitudinal survey and the management of the website, have been managed within the Educational Research Centre, rather than by my Department.

A report on the overall process has been drafted. I expect that the final report will be presented to me early in 2006, after which it will be published. The report will reflect the various views expressed throughout the consultation, both anecdotally at the meetings and in written submissions and also the statistical information gathered through the public attitudinal survey.

The intention behind this process was to provide an opportunity to as wide as possible a segment of Irish society to have an input into planning for the medium and long-term development of education in Ireland. The rationale is that the education system impinges on the lives of all people in Ireland and, therefore, it is appropriate to seek their views on it from time to time.

It was never intended that the report reflecting what transacted during the consultation process would be followed by a rigid, formal process of implementation. The report will be the product of the consultation process and it will be available to inform those of us engaged in making medium and long-term policy in the area of education. This will allow the values and attitudes of the public to play a role in the formation of education policy. The need for this is recognised in a number of countries where surveys concerning educational issues are carried out from time to time. The best known of these are probably the annual surveys which have been carried out in the United States by the Gallup organisation since 1969. As far as I can ascertain, the last survey conducted in this country to elicit the views on educational issues of a national sample was in the 1970s so the survey carried out as part of the YES process is a useful update.

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