Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I set up a National Working Group for Junior Cycle last January, as a forum to proactively address identified challenges and opportunities as they arise over the phased implementation time schedule for the Junior Cycle.

My officials, through this National Working Group, have engaged in meaningful discussions with all the education stakeholders, including the second level teachers unions. Three sub-groups were established to consider the following issues - Workload and implementation issues for schools and teachers; Quality assurance and support for teacher assessment; and the Continuing professional development required to support teachers and school leaders to implement the Junior Cycle. In all, there have been 13 meetings since January.

A report prepared for me on the work to date, published in May, indicated that while some progress has been achieved since the first meeting of the Working Group in January, and many constructive proposals have been made by some of the education partners, there is clearly further work to be done to achieve all necessary elements of the reform.

I and my officials are very open to discussing issues of disagreement relating to the JCSA with the teacher unions and have been all along. I have asked my officials to continue to have discussions with the partners on Junior Cycle. At present I have detailed suggestions, particularly from the management/patron bodies, which will inform the discussions going forward, but I continue to await similar written submissions from the teacher unions.

The door remains open for such discussions.