Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and welcome the opportunity to participate in this valuable debate. The mission of the Department of Education and Skills is to enable learners to achieve their full potential and contribute to Ireland's economic, social and cultural development.

What is wrong with the junior certificate examination? When the results come out every year we read about the number of students who got 14 or 13 grade As or honours and see the pictures of the smiling students in the newspapers. I was certainly not one of the lucky ones to receive 14 grade As. Unfortunately, we also sometimes frown over the reports of alcohol fuelled celebrations and public disorder that night. Then, that is the end of it for another year. The students buy the examinations papers as soon as they are published in September and start practising for the following June. That is the reality for many of them.

We must focus on the reality that the current junior certificate programme is not enabling students to become independent learners, to achieve their full potential or to acquire the skills necessary for life long learning. When the junior certificate cycle was introduced approximately 20 years ago its objective was to move away from the rigid examination based, rote learning that had characterised the old intermediate certificate. Initially, hopes were high. The programme was based on the clear principles of breadth, balance, relevance and quality. However, as the programme evolved, it came to be viewed as a mini leaving certificate, with the focus completely on the end results. Many of the original aims got lost in the process.

The new junior cycle programme aims to place the needs of our students at the core of what happens in schools and to improve the quality of their learning experiences and outcomes. Such an approach should enable all students to achieve their full potential and be properly challenged in their learning, thereby raising educational standards.

We have all heard the phrase "Ireland has the best educational standards in the world" trotted out on many occasions in the past. We heard it so often we actually believed it and probably became complacent regarding the skills we assumed our students had acquired having completed their second level education. Alarm bells should have been ringing when third level institutions were highlighting the lack of independent and self-directed learning skills being displayed by undergraduates and employers were bemoaning the drop in standards in basic literacy and numeracy.

It is clear that for far too long our teaching and learning in the classroom has focused on attainment in examinations, which has promoted rote learning and stifled creativity. A case, I believe, of the tail wagging the dog. The new junior cycle programme will address these failings by emphasising seven key skills, the primary being literacy and numeracy. In removing the rigid focus on the terminal examination as the ultimate goal, schools will now be empowered to design programmes tailored to their individual school settings.

The evidence of the decline in our educational standards is clear and worrying. As alluded to by the Minister, one in ten children in Irish schools is experiencing serious difficulty with reading or writing. In some disadvantaged schools, this is as high as one in three students. There has been a decline in the performance of post-primary students in Ireland in international literacy tests. For example, in 2000 Irish 15 year old students performed at the above average level in the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA, coming fifth. However, in 2009, Irish students performed at the average level, coming 17th place out of 34. This is a startling decline. The 2009 tests show that 17% of all Irish 15 year olds and almost one in four teenage boys lack the literacy skills to perform effectively in today's society. Based on this evidence, we welcome the national strategy introduced by the Minister to improve numeracy and literacy among children and young people. This strategy provides a clear roadmap on where the education system needs to go and a clear view of the collaborative role of all the educational partners.

I would like to focus for a moment on literacy issues. What exactly is literacy and how do we interpret it? Traditionally, we have always thought of literacy as the skill of reading and writing. Our understanding of literacy today encompasses much more than this. Literacy includes the capacity to read, understand and critically appreciate various forms of communication, including the spoken language, printed text, broadcast and digital media. Not only do young people need to be able to read and understand the written texts, they must also be able to critically analyse the content of what they are reading. The Wikipedia and Google generation must be given the tools to help them discern fact from fiction.

Development of good literacy and numeracy skills among all young people is fundamental to the life chances of each individual and essential to the quality and equity of Irish society. The new junior cycle programme recognises that the development of children's literacy and numeracy skills in post-primary schools is not just the responsibility of teachers of languages and mathematics. Teachers of all post-primary subjects have an important role to play in developing and consolidating students' abilities to use literacy and numeracy. It should be recognised that learners in Irish-medium schools and settings have varied learning needs and that they need to be able to develop literacy skills in Irish and English.

Implementation of the numeracy and literacy strategy and junior cycle programme relies on the collaboration and co-operation of the entire school community, including management, teachers, students and parents. No one group can effect change on its own. International research shows that the support of parents who are engaged in their child's learning has a significant positive impact on the child's educational achievement, in particular in literacy and numeracy. Young people achieve better when their parents take an active interest in their education, supporting and encouraging them and creating high but achievable expectations.

The move away from a single terminal exam towards a system of school-based assessment will ensure parents will be provided with more comprehensive feedback on the continuing attainments of their children. It will allow students review their own progress and discuss it with their teachers and other students with a view to identifying the next steps to be taken. This will help build students' capacity to manage their own learning and motivate them to stick with a complex task or problem. It will also form the basis of more informed conversations between parents and schools on the learning of their students. I commend the Minister on his obvious commitment to raising the educational standards of our young people. As a teacher with more than 25 years experience - I hate saying that-----