Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy knows, the approach of the new junior certificate is to have a range of items on which people can be assessed. A very important element is the certificate of achievement and, unfortunately, it will not be available if schools have not participated in allowing students to recognise and measure their performance. It is a big innovation to allow people do things outside the norm, value the project work they do in class and so on.

The 10% of marks are assigned by the SEC based on a written piece of work in classroom-based assessment. If that has not happened, those marks cannot be assigned. Of course, anybody looking at a junior certificate will see how a student did in his or her exams and fared in the different subjects. Unfortunately, those elements are under some pressure in the 375 schools that are purely ASTI. We would like to see the issue resolved but we must do it through the Teachers Conciliation Council, and that is what we are seeking to do.

See this speech in context