Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is little surprise in today's story in The Irish Times that our students who attend third level are mainly from prosperous areas, fee-paying schools and Gaelscoileanna. They are all advantaged in achieving that over children attending school in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. In this context I am worried about the Minister's proposal to replace the junior certificate with a school-based or school-examined school certificate. I do not know if people realise this is going to happen. The State examination at junior certificate level will be gone. I have been thinking about this development. Who will this disadvantage? It will not disadvantage those who are making it to third level but will disadvantage the early school leavers, the one in eight or one in ten students who drop out before leaving certificate who will then have no State certification. Those children may travel and may emigrate. When they present for jobs abroad they will be asked to forward a copy of their examination results from Ireland. What good will a school report be? That is all it will be. Education is meant to be the great equaliser. If the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, moves ahead with this proposal he will ensure that it will be the great unequaliser and will reinforce inequality, particularly where children drop out early from school. In this regard I ask the Minister to revise his plans to replace the junior certificate with a school certificate. I ask the Leader to invite him to the House for a debate on the junior certificate reform examination only. There is much I like about his ideas on reform but not on his proposal to replace the junior certificate examination with a school-based examination only. That is not good enough for the children who drop out early.