Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Reform is about more than just the Minister for Education and Skills. However, there are times in the lifetime of any Government when somebody must take the lead and a stand in terms of what needs to be done to reform the education system. Nobody denies that the junior certificate programme, as constituted, is broken. It serves no function or purpose in empowering young people to be exceptionally able in the future. We abolished the primary certificate programme many years ago when it became apparent that it also served no useful function. Everybody agrees that this is the right direction in which to move. There is no question about this; what is at issue is implementation. The Minister and I have engaged with young people on a number of issues in the recent past, including this one. The door is open in terms of how we should implement this badly needed reform of the junior cycle system. The working group has been established and includes representatives of the parents council. As I said, we propose to re-engage with parents and will do our best to make people aware of the opportunities to engage with us at various centres throughout the country. There will be a public relations campaign around these opportunities. Our door is open to parents, student and teacher representatives. Nobody denies this is the direction in which we need to move. I agree that we need to re-engage to determine how we can address the concerns raised by parents and teachers.

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