Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the way he will ensure that the new junior certificate cycle is implemented in a consistent manner and to the same standard across all schools; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51324/12]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I published the framework for the junior cycle on 4 October. All schools are to develop their junior cycle programme mindful of the principles, key skills and the 24 statements of learning. Subjects, short courses and, where relevant, priority learning units will be developed according to agreed specifications. The framework includes a number of measures to support and quality assure assessment across the three years of the junior cycle.

There will be two particular supports for reporting on student learning achievements and outcomes. New report card templates will be made available. In addition, to support a teacher's evaluation of their students' learning, the specifications will include examples of student work that illustrate the standard of work expected from different kinds of students at different stages of junior cycle. This will be augmented by the resources within the NCCA's assessment and moderation toolkit.

I believe parents will strongly support this system once they see how much additional information they will receive about their child's educational and personal development. Furthermore, I remind the Deputy that we are moving away from the high-stakes exam environment which has been the key driver of rote learning in the current junior certificate examination.

I plan to introduce standardised testing in second year for all schools in English reading, mathematics and science and in Irish reading for Irish medium schools. These new tests will provide a good independent indicator of student progress in the middle of the junior cycle programme.

A comprehensive professional development service will be provided, from the academic year from 2013 to 2014, for teachers, principals and deputy principals. Last week, I announced that Dr. Pádraig Kirk, the former CEO of County Louth VEC, will be the director of this dedicated service.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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The way in which the Minister announced his decision on the junior certificate cycle reform has made the start of the project difficult. I disagree with the fact he did not engage adequately in advance with teachers, who will be a key part in delivering it. As a result of the failure to work out a plan in advance of making the announcement, it will take eight years before all subjects will be examined at junior certificate level. There is a need to reform the junior certificate programme but it should not take so long. With more planning and proper consultation in advance it could have been delivered sooner. The Minister does not seem to have given thought to ensuring standards in various schools. In recent weeks Britain has begun to reverse from teachers doing the marking to the introduction of a more uniform approach. The TUI president, Gerry Craughwell, has expressed concerns about how different schools will have different capacities to introduce short courses and those with better resources will provide a different standard of curriculum than that provided by other schools. We need to ensure each student receives the same curriculum and the Minister needs to address this and perhaps undo some of what was done in the haste to make the announcement without proper preparations.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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As Deputies are aware, on Thursday afternoon the House will have an opportunity to debate the junior certificate cycle reform in some substance over two hours.

There is also a question further down the Order Paper that addresses some of the questions that have been put in supplementary form by Deputy McConalogue.

Let us step back a little in terms of history. The National Council for Curriculum Assessment has been recommending changes in the junior cycle for over ten years. Some sectors in the education stakeholders' camp confuse negotiations with consultation and confuse consultation with negotiations. It is the responsibility of the Department and the Minister, taking the best advice from the entire array of stakeholders, to digest that advice and to make decisions. Once that decision is made, then all the stakeholders will be fully consulted as to how best to proceed to reach the targets that are set. Deputy McConalogue cited Great Britain, and I specifically mean Great Britain but not necessarily Northern Ireland because it has a different approach to education from Britain. One cannot chop and change the education system overnight. It is too big, too delicate and too sophisticated an entity for that to be done.

What we have done to get it right - it is not a delay but a deliberate decision on my part - is to decide that the first step in the direction of the reform will start in September 2014 and in 2017 the first cohort will sit, under the new regime that I have just described, English as a subject. The following three years will see the roll-out of the remainder of the subjects. During the course of that journey to get from here to there we will be monitoring all of the implementations involved.

The two secondary school unions directly involved in the junior cycle, the TUI and the ASTI, had members on the working party which looked at and came up with the curriculum. Their concern is with the diminution of the junior certificate examination as a high-stakes examination and it becoming a school examination rather than a high-stakes or State examination.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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Will the Minister outline the steps he has taken thus far in his engagements with the sector to ensure that there is a standard approach across schools in terms of the quality of the courses to be delivered?

What consultations has the Minister had on ensuring there is uniformity in the marking of examinations? There is grave concern among students and teachers that the approach will not work. Where is the Minister in such engagements?

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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When the system is completed and students take between eight and ten subjects, the examinations on those ultimately will be marked by the teachers in question. Those examinations will account for 60% of the marks for a particular subject and the balance of 40% will be made up from project work the students do in second and third years. The schools and the subject teachers will be sent templates and examples of what standards to expect so that they can look at the work of a weak student, an average student and a good student. There is much experience in the Department in this regard.

Regarding their overall results in the examinations, schools will be notified subject by subject. While it is still evolving, this is the intention. Schools will be notified, after the examinations and after the results have been collected, collated and examined, of an average performance, a good performance and a poor performance. For example, they will be notified of the spectrum in history and whether the school was either above or below a particular level in its marking. It will evolve so that they will know what is the national norm, what the median variation could be and whether they fit within that spectrum. If that raises issues, then there would be discussions with the inspectors.