John Crown (Independent)

I will allow Senator Mac Conghail to produce my first play. I read approximately 20 non-science books per year and I am interested in this issue. It is not a question of either-or, we must have both. We live in a world of science governed by gravity, temperature, relativity, meteorology and evolution. These are all realities and we should teach people science all the way through school, not to pick out the brilliant scientists who will become the elite whitecoat-wearing eggheads, but to give people an essential part of the skill set they need to interpret the reality of life.

If we had more people in these two Chambers who, in addition to having arts backgrounds, understood the critical importance of science, social science, history, geography and natural science, then they would make many more sensible decisions about such things as energy, the economy and agriculture. It is critical to produce people who have these skills and it is essential that people have a mandatory arts component all the way through to the time they leave school at 18 years of age. This should include a mandatory foreign language not for matriculation purposes, but to give students a skill which most of our fellow European citizens have in an area in which, in general, we fare rather poorly.

It is difficult to discuss the junior certificate without asking the following existential question. Do we really need to have an examination that people do half way through secondary school? I remain to be convinced that some outside-the-box thinking would not come to the conclusion that it is a historical construct that we inherited, that we ape the British and their O-level examinations, that it does not make a great deal of sense and that it hinders the flexibility of teachers to cater for younger secondary school students. I trust I have not gone on too much.