Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The key issue here has been the way the Minister has handled these reforms from the outset. With change in any organisation, whether private or public, the reforms must be done in partnership, not in conflict. I note the way the Minister went about this from the first day he announced the new junior certificate reform. He announced it without consultation and, indeed, he deviated from the recommendation given to him by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. The Minister made his own call on it and he did it without consultation. He stated that one could go along with it and that was the way it was going. I later heard him describe the decision not to do common assessment under the State Examination Commission and to have teachers correct the junior certificate instead as a personal political project. That is not what reform is supposed to be about. It is little wonder the Minister finds himself in a situation, a little more than six months before this reform is due to kick in in classrooms, in which the two main teaching unions of professionals who are supposed to deliver this curriculum have stated they will not co-operate with him. The Minister lost their faith a long time ago. We now need mediation so that we can get junior certificate reform up and running in a spirit of partnership, not on a bad footing, for what should be one of the most significant changes to the second-level education system in many years.

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