Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I understand that the Minister cannot be supporting a private system. We have need for a public system as well. However, perhaps there are ways the two could be combined whereby we could possibly co-locate. A school that has been under-utilising its facilities might be able to co-locate with a new international school to allow it be established. One of the reasons I would support such a move is that I would like to see some greater options here and, perhaps, greater impetus in the reform of our junior certificate and leaving certificate systems. The introduction of schools offering the international baccalaureate might actually provide this. It might give us experience of other exam mechanisms and techniques and other learning mechanisms. As a parent of four children who are now going through the education system, it does not seem that the system has been reformed at all in the way we were promised it would be. My children are doing the same "murder machine" trick of learning things off and spouting things out. The advantage of us having a cadre of schools here offering the international baccalaureate would be that it might help us reform our system, which, I believe, is badly needed.

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