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

A national working group has been established to see how best we can achieve this welcome reform of our junior cycle system. The group includes representatives from the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI, the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, ASTI, all the school management bodies, the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, NAPD, Educate Together, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, and the State Examination Commission. It has established three subgroups to examine closely the challenges that some have suggested might emanate from this reform. The subgroups are on quality assurance and support for teacher assessment, continuing professional development required to support teachers and school leaders to implement the junior cycle, and workload and implementation issues for schools and teachers.

The subgroup on quality assurance and support is considering ways the assessment and moderation of the new junior cycle will be addressed. The management bodies, Educate Together and parents have provided written submissions containing their views and they are being considered by the Department. However, without a written submission from teachers it is impossible to have the balanced debate the Deputy rightly suggests we have. The teachers must make that submission to represent their views alongside all the other education partners. Without it we are operating in a vacuum. I call upon the teachers' unions across the country to make submissions, engage with the process and, hopefully, arrive at a point where we can collectively move forward together to implement the reform.

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