Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. The last three contributions have been thought provoking. If I disagree with Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan on anything it is no the issue of rote learning. While I agree rote learning for the sake of it is not necessarily a bad thing, I have a huge problem with rote learning for the purpose of career selection, with a person's life charted out according to rote learning.

I spent some time teaching but I was also in the first class that went through the new junior certificate in 1992. By and large it has remained more or less the same in that period. Credit where it is due, it needed to be changed. Deputy O'Brien summed it up well earlier, it is a major change and must be done carefully. Rushing into it and putting an unnecessarily short timeframe on the programme would do this an injustice and create an even greater problem. In the context of rote learning for a high stakes examination at 15 years of age, there is an obvious need for State assessment but the 15 year old will have spent the first eight years in a school setting that discouraged rote learning will then enter second level where it is almost all rote learning. He or she will then at third level enter an environment of continuous assessment, so there is no clear passage from primary to secondary to tertiary in terms of the methodologies used for teaching and the outcomes for the person from the learning process.

I would look at this based on expectations and outcomes. At primary level, huge emphasis is placed on the child being an active learner in his own education. That is part of what the Minister wants to achieve. Some teachers are good at predicting what quotation, theorem or maths question will come up. We must then throw into the mix the grind school mentality. Some people are at an advantage when they sit the State examination compared to those who may not come from the same socioeconomic background.

Much of the debate is predicated on our literacy and numerous levels, which are in a serious condition. The Department of Education of Skills would be failing in its duties, and we would be failing in our duties, if we do not ask why after 14 years of continuous education, we are still producing a small but significant number who are leaving school functionally illiterate.

They cannot complete a basic form or carry out a basic mathematical operation in their heads. We need to ask whether the system is fit for purpose and I believe that is what the Minister is trying to do with this debate.

It is essential for the Department of Education and Skills to engage with other stakeholders, in particular employers, about what will be needed in the future. For example, I welcome the inclusion of Chinese as an option for this cohort of students for the first time. I also welcome the inclusion of computer coding in terms of developing future IT skills. However, is there room for Portuguese and Russian to be included as languages given that the emerging markets of Brazil and Russia are among the largest of the countries we are trying to get into along with the other BRIC countries?

This change cannot be done in isolation. There is a review at primary level in terms of how the curriculum might be overloaded, particularly for junior and senior infants. The junior cycle is now being looked at. As I said on Tuesday during questions to the Minister, this needs to be part of a package that includes the leaving certificate. As the previous speaker said, we have a lot of time now and I would really encourage the Minister to look at the leaving certificate. We need to put some form of continual assessment and real-life experience into it. We have all been in examinations, for example the driving test, where we have had a bad day. A person's entire life, whether it means getting into third level, or getting a trade or job, should not be based on one bad day. The concept of continual assessment for the junior certificate must also translate itself into the leaving certificate because this reform on its own may come a cropper which would be very unfortunate.

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