Ann Ormonde (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister and acknowledge her willingness to give so much of her time to listen to the concerns of Members about the entire spectrum of education, from primary to third level and beyond. I agree with many of the points raised by Senator O'Reilly and would welcome further debate on them. However, I will not dwell on them aside from observing that education must be holistic and the issue is how our educational system can give a rounded education to young people by using that approach.

I intend to focus my remarks on the points system for access to third level education. There have been many debates on reforming the points system. The Points Commission report was produced in 1999. It agreed that the points system is still the fairest and most transparent. It has been recognised as such by applicants, parents and the education providers. That is its strength. However, I always have been concerned that the holistic aspect of education is being lost in the process of achieving enough points to secure access to third level education. What has always concerned me about grind schools, as Senator O'Reilly mentioned, is that the reason for their existence is the colossal number of points necessary to get into third level colleges. Do the people who come out of this have a properly rounded education? We must consider this again.

I acknowledge that the Government has put a lot of money into the development of post-leaving certificate courses and the allocation of places. However, although this represents an alternative route into third level education, somehow the message is not getting out. People still have a perception that if they do not go to university they do not have a proper third level education. They do not consider the post-leaving certificate courses, which are an excellent path to certificate and ordinary degree courses and from there to honours and postgraduate degrees. This area does not get enough attention. The money is there and there are many courses with more than 30,000 places. All third level faculties can be accessed through this route, although it takes a little longer. This means that students can study at their own pace and according to their own abilities rather than being under colossal pressure to get 500 or 560 points.

The points race is soul-destroying and it is destroying our education system. This makes me wonder whether we should consider some changes to the leaving certificate examination, such as giving students a second bite of the cherry in one year. If a student has done extremely well but misses out by a few points on medicine, perhaps he or she should be given a second chance in August rather than taking a full year. I acknowledge that the Minister has tried to reform entry into medicine by introducing a new system, which is to be welcomed. However, this adds three or four more years onto the course. Could we allow students to have a second chance at the leaving certificate exam in the same year? I have been pushing for this since long before I came into this Chamber. We did have a system in which one could take two examinations in subsequent years and share the points, which was dismissed because of competitiveness in the market.

I am no longer concerned about entry into any course other than medicine. Other courses available today have alternative means of access. For example, those who want to study veterinary science can do a health science course in the Institute of Technology in Carlow followed by a veterinary course in Scotland or Wales. Many other career paths have similar alternative means of entry. The only one that does not is medicine, as the Minister has acknowledged. This is something about which I feel strongly. I would love to find out how many of us know old-fashioned doctors with a lovely bedside manner who needed no more than leaving certificate chemistry and biology to get into medical school. Many of these turned out to be superb doctors. I would love to see a return to the days when one did not have to achieve 550 points.