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

The Minister, Deputy Quinn, set up a national working group for the junior cycle last January to proactively address identified challenges and opportunities as they arise over the phased implementation of the junior cycle. His officials have engaged with all education stakeholders, including the second level teachers' unions. There have been 13 meetings since January last. The Minister published a report on the work of those meetings and that group in May. The report indicated that some progress had been achieved and many constructive proposals have been made, particularly by the management and patron bodies, which will inform the discussions going forward, but the Minister continues to await similar written submissions from the teacher unions.

Nobody is denying that there is clearly further work to be done to achieve all necessary elements of the reform. The reform must be achieved. The Minister and his officials are very open to continuing discussion of issues relating to the implementation of the junior cycle, including aspects of disagreement raised by the teacher unions. The door has remained open and will remain open for such discussions.

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