Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

It is my intention to devolve back to principals more autonomy and independence to do what they consider to be best. It is wrong that we have 3,200 primary schools stretching from the Aran Islands to the inner city of Dublin, or disadvantaged rural areas in Border counties with a one size fits all curriculum, with little discretion for the principal. In the context of resources and in terms of emphasis within the constraints of the primary school curriculum - which is a good model - we will provide greater autonomy to principals and their teachers and assistant teachers to try to obtain the outcomes we require. We need to focus on literacy in a way we have not done heretofore.

We were given a wake-up call in the form of the results from the PISA tests. We do not have the best education system in the world, far from it. We are currently in the third division but we want to return to the first division.

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