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

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this very important issue and glad to see it getting a proper hearing for it in the House. I commend Sinn Féin on putting the matter down for discussion. I emphasise that Fianna Fáil favours very much reform of the junior certificate and achieving it in partnership with teachers. If one looks at how this came about, a great deal of work was carried out and in train before the Government took office. I am surprised by the first paragraph of the Sinn Féin motion where it is stated that it notes that the previous Government examined axing the junior certificate exam structure as a cost saving initiative and that such axing of the junior certificate exam structure was the starting point for the current Government until teacher unions began a campaign of opposition. That opening comment is simply incorrect.

Much work had gone into preparing for what is widely regarded as a necessary reform of the junior certificate. When Mary Coughlan was Minister she conducted a consultation on how reform would be progressed. A working group was established by the NCCA which included all stakeholders with a view to looking at the research that was there and coming forward with a proposal to achieve real and genuine reform of the junior cycle. That resulted in the publication in early 2011 of the NCCA working group report which was the starting point for the current Government.

The NCCA working group proposed that 60% of the mark of a student in the new junior certificate student cycle would consist of terminal examinations, as in the past, set by the State Examination Commission, SEC, and corrected under its auspices, independently, as in the past. It proposed that the other 40% would be assessed through classroom based activities and project work, which would involve teachers assessing their students. Stakeholders from all the groups were involved and it was accepted by the then Minister, Deputy Quinn.

Unfortunately, approximately a year later, at the end of 2012, Deputy Quinn made a departure of his own volition, and very much of his mind and his mind only. He decided he would not accept or go forward with the proposals that had come forward from the NCCA working group but instead abolish the junior certificate examination. It would no longer be a State examination with 60% corrected by the SEC but become a school certificate. The 60% written papers would be corrected by teachers while the other 40%, as proposed under the working group proposals, would also be corrected by teachers. The then Minister, Deputy Quinn, came out unilaterally, as was his wont, with lights, camera, action at the little house in the middle of the Department of Education and Skills.

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