John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I suppose most people who know anything about me know that I worked as a secondary school teacher for 13 years. I come to the House in as impartial a manner as possible with no desire for point-scoring or anything like that.

Deputy Coppinger and myself trained together as teachers back in 1998. Curriculum and assessment was one element of our post-graduate course which was taught by Professor Ted Wragg, one of the best known British educationalists for more than 30 years. He died about ten years ago, having written more than 50 books on education. I still remember one quote from him during the curriculum and assessment module of my higher diploma from almost 20 years ago. He said that assessment is the tail that wags the curriculum dog. That says much more than the number of words in the sentence.

Back in 1989 I was one of the first students to do the new junior certificate, which was supposed to be the bells and whistles in terms of offering a new type of education to young people. However, it did nothing more than what the intermediate certificate had done before it. We had a new scheme and a new concept but we never changed the assessment process. We left it as a terminal exam at the end of year three. The exam was marked independently, which has its merits admittedly. We never changed the assessment process but did deliver a new curriculum which was supposed to equip people like myself and those who came after me with new skills that we could bring with us throughout our lives, such as becoming reflective learners, reflective practitioners, capable of engaging in group work and so forth. The reality is, however, that we never changed the assessment process.

If we are to have any sort of new cycle - in this case the junior cycle - we need to have a new assessment process. That assessment process must be able to learn what is going on in the classroom. How many people here have done an exam at some stage in their lives and had a bad day? Something might have gone wrong on the way into the exam. That can happen, whether one is 15 or 25. One can have a bad day and it is wrong to judge people on three years of work in a two-hour exam at the end of the cycle. That does not reflect the quality of work that somebody might have put in over those three years. It does not reflect the commitment someone may have made in trying to speak French in class during all of that time or the amount of time spent practising and going back over work.

The proposal that is before us genuinely offers a new assessment process which will take into account the real learning that young people should be experiencing and not just their ability to look at the geography exam papers from the past ten years and remember how to draw a map. If a student can remember how to do that, he or she is 30% of the way towards passing junior certificate geography. That is not acceptable for me as a teacher. I committed myself to being a teacher because I believe in the betterment of young people. I genuinely believe that most teachers would have no problem with what I have said here tonight. They go into teaching because of the belief they have in young people. They want the best for young people. However, I acknowledge that there is an issue at the moment. I have no particular opinion on what the teachers will do tomorrow - that is their decision and they have good reasons for making it.

At the centre of these changes is our young people and our desire for a better society - a better, well-equipped and more mature society with young people who have the skills to get the best out of life. The assessment process to which Professor Wragg referred is about not allowing the curriculum to be led by the exam. It is about letting the learning lead the way. However, we cannot do this without teacher support. Teachers are pressed already. They are working 33 periods plus five additional periods under the Haddington Road Agreement. They do not have a minute in school. We can deliver a new school-based assessment process that involves teachers only if we bring those teachers with us. I believe that teachers will come with us, provided we change the work practices in schools. They cannot do this on top of the work they are doing right now. I support the junior certificate reform proposals and the Government's motion.

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