Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

From conversations I have had with teachers and concerned parents, I am strongly directed to the view that this Government is intent on doing away with the junior certificate without proper consultation and that its key motivation, like that of its predecessor, is saving money. The Irish education system has many flaws but the impartiality of the State examinations is one of its virtues. The Government is attempting to railroad so-called reform without teacher support or even attempting to address their real and valid concerns.

The current Government seems not in the least bit fazed by strikes or, indeed, the threat of strikes. A further day of teacher strike action is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday. We have also seen the Minister for Health do too little and do it too late to avert a nursing staff work to rule. The Minister for Education and Skills has equally failed to address the concerns of teachers in any meaningful way.

I appreciate that reforms of our education system are needed. That said, I fear the removal of external examination has the potential to undermine education standards up to and beyond the junior cycle level. It is most surprising there was no consultation with teachers prior to the announcement of the new arrangements for the examination of children up to the junior certificate level. In what world does that sound like a proper way to deal with major reform, namely, do away with a significant part of the system, refuse to take the ideas of providers of the system on board and then wonder why many are worried about the reform or, indeed, downright opposed to it?

On a related matter, I was concerned to read of the Department of Education and Skills plan to develop an individualised database of primary school children, with the inclusion of children's PPS numbers and with this information to be kept until the children reach 30 years of age. Is it truly necessary, I ask, to collect and store this information at all, let alone for such a long period, well beyond school leaving age, including well beyond the average third level age of completion?

On another related matter, the announcement by the Minister of the construction of four new schools through public private partnership has also deeply concerned me. This practice, I had thought, lay in the failed policies of the former Fianna Fáil-PD coalition Government. Perhaps I should not be too surprised that the Fine Gael-Labour coalition has decided to take a leaf out of its book. I understand that building has commenced on four new post-primary schools under schools bundle 4 of the Government's PPP programme. The Minister of State, Deputy Jan O Sullivan, has said the project was cost-effective, "in so far as we pay over a long period of time" and "also the fact that the maintenance is part of the programme".

The hand-over of the provision of schools to private companies is an expensive and cumbersome option. We have seen in the past that PPPs undertaken by the Department of Education and Skills turned out to be up to 19% more expensive than conventional procurement. The schools and sports pitches in this case will be funded by AIB Corporate Banking and German bank KfW IPEX-Bank. What sort of example are we setting our children? Only those truly lacking in insight would fail to see the total inappropriateness of this in an educational setting. This is the first rollout of construction of almost 3,000 new school places. I fear they will all take this approach.

Iarraim ar an Aire athsmaoineamh a dhéanamh. I appeal to the Minister and the Minister of State to take the opportunity to sit down with the relevant parties - directly with the teachers - to discuss the best way forward and to adopt a truly reform-based approach to our junior cycle. Let us not throw the baby out with the bath water by jeopardising parts of the education system that can be reformed and retained, the two not being in conflict with each other.

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