Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I had a similar experience with my son who is now in sixth year. A great deal depends on the motivation of the young people involved, the individual co-ordinators of transition year programmes and the level of general engagement. On the one hand, the dilemma for me, as Minister for Education and Skills, is that people are stating we are being too prescriptive with the curriculum, that we are overloading it and that schools are being instructed on what they should be doing almost every minute of every day. On the other hand, we are trying to inform schools that they should do their own thing during transition year. A balance must be struck.

I am going to examine the responses I receive from the ISSU and others on this matter and then consider the guidelines and assistance we can offer to secondary schools in order that they will have a menu of choices and activities to offer students. I accept that some of the latter are already in place, but I am concerned to discover whether improvements are necessary and whether new options might be offered. In that respect, we could consider whether it might be possible to tap into young people's enthusiasm for information technology and all the activities associated with it. We must harness that which is already in place in a way which will make transition year a more worthwhile experience for most of those who participate in it.

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