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

First, I wish to recall that in 2016 we set the target of having the best education and training system in Europe by 2026. I am very heartened by the progress that has been made. I believe passionately that it can be achieved. We have an excellent basis to do so. However, I will point out to the Minister that it is about more reform, not about more resources in the main. It is about the quality of leadership and the quality of teaching, not about the input-output ratios that tend to be the conversation in our education system. Most of all, one of the things that will stop us from achieving this is if we fail to reform the leaving certificate examination and do not take on a radical agenda of change now.

To date, we have taken an extremely cautious approach. We started with the junior cycle, but even in that there was no proper evaluation of the projects. Only 10% of marks went to a student's written assessment, not to the project itself. That sold people short. Some 90% of the junior cycle is still memory based. I accept that there has been much innovative thinking about the curriculum and there is a huge improvement. The portfolio of achievements is really welcome. However, we have not succeeded in radically changing the teaching-to-the-test approach.

Society has changed dramatically and if we do not change the leaving certificate examination, we will not catch up with it. The OECD recently warned us that we are creating an education system that will turn out second-class students if we do not undertake change. The system is cast from the industrial production line of trying to put everyone through the same system, memory-based retention and trapping teaching and learning in a very tight straitjacket that is simply not creating adaptability and innovation, the type of things people need to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing world. There have been innovations that I welcome. The physical education programme, for example, is a much more interesting way of presentation and assessment. Digital schools and the re-emergence of apprenticeships are very welcome. However, we have not seized the opportunity to change to a more positive, student-led system of education. It is still handing down the tablets of stone, and that is not the way. We need to value a much wider range of intelligence, as many have said in this debate.

Covid-19 exposed the weaknesses of the system, but it also showed our capacity for innovation. The old saying that necessity is the mother of invention has been proven in our education system. We have seized alternative assessment methods and delivered them fairly and successfully. We have shown that we can do this. This legislation is welcome, but it is far too narrow. We should have a legislative framework for ambitious changes of the type that have long been sought. The reform of the leaving certificate examination started in 2016, but it has proceeded at a snail's pace. Five years later, and nothing has happened. The Minister should seize the moment. She should engage with students, primarily, and ask them if we should cut back memory retention to less than 50% of the marks. Should we have open-book examinations? Should we have a proper evaluation framework for projects, not this make-up thing of students writing up their experience? Should we have stronger recognition of portfolios of experience?

I believe we must force the pace of change. It is not an industrial relations issue. It is about the future for our children. That change should also force change at third level and in the apprenticeship system. We should make second-chance education the norm, not the very rare exception it is now.

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