JOINT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND SCIENCE debate -
Thursday, 1 May 2003

Vol. 1 No. 11

National Council for Curriculum and Assessment and the Curriculum Development Unit: Presentations.

Chairman

The principal business of this meeting, initially, was to consider the committee's response to the Green Paper on Entrepreneurship in Europe. In that context, the committee decided to invite the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment and the Curriculum Development Unit to make presentations. I ask the delegations to speak only about the Green Paper and the place of entrepreneurship in the curriculum, although I appreciate this may be difficult.

Before the presentations begin, I wish to draw the attention of witnesses to the fact that while members of the committee have absolute privilege, the same privilege does not extend to witnesses appearing before the committee. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against any person outside of the House or any official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I call on Ms Anne Looney, the chief executive of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, to make her presentation and to introduce her colleagues.

Ms Anne Looney

I would like to introduce my colleague from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, Mr. John Hammond, who works chiefly in the area of post-primary education. Our presentation will cover entrepreneurship from early childhood to the end of the period of second level education. The first part of my presentation to the committee will involve a short overview of work in progress. We have chosen only those aspects that relate, in the opinion of the council, to entrepreneurship and the dispositions for entrepreneurship, as set out in the Green Paper. The committee will not receive a comprehensive treatment of all the council's work.

As regards the curriculum in early childhood and primary education, the most significant current development is the introduction in primary schools of the revised primary curriculum, which is noted on page two of the paper. This is being rolled out in schools. The next phase of in-career support will focus on the consolidation and review of the curriculum before the remaining areas are introduced. Later on, we will give the committee some idea of the aspects of entrepreneurship which relate to the primary curriculum. While the committee will not find a subject called entrepreneurship, it will find that the skills of entrepreneurship are embedded in the curriculum subjects.

Arising from a review of curriculum and assessment at junior cycle, two major strands of work relate to entrepreneurship. The first is an initiative which we called "Assessment for Learning" which provides all teachers with web-based support on assessment for learning and also provides targeted support for networks of teachers in the Cork and Sligo regions. The reason this is important is it is informed by an approach to assessment which gives students constructive feedback on their learning and provides for greater use of peer and self-assessment techniques for students. This is important in that it shifts the balance from students being assessed solely at the end of their courses towards the introduction of more creative approaches to assessment in the curriculum.

The rebalancing of all junior cycle syllabi to address issues of overlap and overload, beginning with English, home economics, history, music and business studies, is also an important development. We hear regular criticism that the curriculum is overcrowded and overloaded. Giving people the space to engage in more creative teaching methodologies is an important part of this work. In addition, the syllabus for science has been redesigned using for the first time the outcomes-based approach to the presentation of syllabi. This means there is more focus on outcomes and less emphasis on covering a broad range of content. There is also significant opportunity for skills development.

To discuss the curriculum at senior cycle, I will hand over to my colleague, John Hammond.

Mr. John Hammond

In the opening paragraph on page three we simply list the range of syllabi which are under revision or have been revised in recent years. I will not dwell on any of these specifically, beyond saying that a revised syllabus in leaving certificate economics is in preparation and is almost completed. Obviously, this will have significance for the area of entrepreneurship.

Easily the most significant current development within senior cycle education is the issuing of a consultative paper called Developing Senior Cycle Education - Consultative Paper on Issues and Options. This is an exercise in foresight and future planning in relation to senior cycle education and, while it is mainly an exercise which focuses on the medium to long-term, it also emphasises the need for fundamental review and reform of the established leaving certificate as a programme.

On the basis of the six-month period of consultations surrounding the paper, which is half completed, we will be advising the Minister on the direction senior cycle education should take in the future. Part of the consultation process is a survey on senior cycle education to which the public and educationalists can respond both through hard copy and on-line. Ms Looney has been looking at the survey's latest findings relevant to our discussions this morning and will give a brief account of these before I address the other issues related to senior cycle.

Ms Looney

One of the innovative things about this on-line survey is that the results are instantly accessible. Once a person visiting the survey site clicks "Enter", his or her results are automatically accounted for. As of last night we had 436 responses to the on-line survey. The appendix to the presentation contains four tables featuring the current results which we believe will be of interest to the committee's concerns on entrepreneurship.

The first page of the appendix gives the current breakdown of survey participants. We have achieved a major success in getting one employer to log into the survey of the 436 respondents to date. However, parents, teachers, school principals and, interestingly, students make up a considerable proportion of those who participated in the survey. The range of the group "Others" includes past pupils and third level students.

The second page of the appendix presents the current status of the results on what respondents thought should be the priorities for senior cycle education. As the committee will see, a range of priorities have been set out. Interpersonal priorities, notably communicating with others and the ability to establish and sustain relationships, feature strongly in terms of support among respondents. Work related priorities such as choosing between career paths and working in changing organisations also feature, but currently come in second in terms of people's priorities as regards the personal dispositions associated with senior cycle education.

The committee indicated it was interested in hearing about transition year. People's views on transition year are also presented in the appendix. Members will see that people feel quite positive towards transition year, except with regard to the statement that it enjoys a high level of public support with which most respondents disagree. This is interesting when one considers the last page of the appendix which relates to the established leaving certificate. On this issue, respondents disagree with almost all the statements in the survey. They do not agree it is relevant to their lives, promotes the health and well-being of students or personal and social skills, or that it is achieving a good balance. Nevertheless, it enjoys a high level of public support. The intractable problems of reforming the school system are, therefore, laid out before the committee in the results of the survey.

The survey is interesting and its on-line component is receiving a considerable number of hits from parents, teachers and schools. Some schools are taking groups of students to the computer laboratory, discussing these issues with them and then asking students to log on to the survey. This is a significant development in the manner in which we consult about education.

Mr. Hammond

Continuing the discussion on the senior cycle paper per se, one of the things it does is present four options on the shape senior cycle education should take in the future and how current programmes should be aligned in the future. None of these is conclusive as many more options could be offered. These questions are particularly important in the context of the discussion on entrepreneurship. For example, one of the options raises the question of whether the leaving certificate vocational programme, which focuses on enterprise education, should be available to all students. Another raises the question of whether we should merge the transition year with other leaving certificate programmes and properly frame a three-year senior cycle programme. Again, this has significant relevance for the inclusion of key skills related to enterprise and entrepreneurship.

The main questions the senior cycle poses are listed at the top of page four. While I do not intend dwelling on them, some members of the committee may wish to return to them when raising questions later. The questions set out in the paper are fundamental in terms of the shape of senior cycle education, for example, in terms of the role key skills should play within senior cycle, what elements of the curriculum we should require to be covered in senior cycle, whether we should have a more "unitised" approach towards the curriculum and so forth.

Moving on to the area of entrepreneurship and the curriculum specifically, what we have tried to do is differentiate between two different approaches to, or aspects of, enterprise and entrepreneurship in terms of the way the curriculum handles this area. There are two different strategic approaches, one of which we have called interventionist, which I will discuss, while Ms Looney will discuss the other, embedding entrepreneurial skill in the curriculum.

When we talk in terms of an interventionist approach we effectively mean the inclusion of concepts and understandings of enterprise or entrepreneurial activity in the curriculum as written. The second approach - embedding - has to do with laying down the foundations for students or children to develop dispositions towards entrepreneurial skills and activities.

Let us focus on the interventionist approach. There is no doubt that, within the curriculum as it is currently constructed and composed, there are significant opportunities for looking at enterprise education and dealing with entrepreneurial activity. The leaving certificate vocational programme, for example, contains a specific link module on enterprise education. That module is assessed and certificated as part of the leaving certificate examination. The leaving certificate applied also places a strong emphasis on enterprise education, mainly within the vocational preparation and guidance course that is offered. That is a compulsory course within the leaving certificate applied. The guidelines for transition year, while they are meant as general guidelines and are not absolutely binding, recommend student immersion in work experience, but also activity in mini-companies, etc.

In addition, within the recently revised leaving certificate business syllabus, almost half of that syllabus is devoted to enterprise. Within the curriculum there are many hooks or opportunities to take on enterprise education or entrepreneurial activities of different kinds. These have been capitalised on by business organisations, chambers of commerce and enterprise boards in order to provide supportive activities, schemes and programmes that can be operated in conjunction with study of the leaving certificate applied or vocational programmes. This is the visible potential for looking at entrepreneurship and enterprise within the curriculum.

Ms Looney will say a little about opportunities to embed entrepreneurial activity within the curriculum.

Ms Looney

With regard to the embedded components, we have taken the current trends in our own curriculum, which we have outlined, and identified three aspects that we think show that we are developing a more entrepreneur-friendly curriculum generally. The Green Paper makes it quite clear that entrepreneurship should be for all. Mr. Hammond has outlined the interventions that are taken by some students. What does every student get in the current curriculum? We are moving towards a curriculum based less on behaviourist learning theories and more on constructivist learning theories. This establishes a curriculum in which students will have an opportunity to develop higher-order thinking, problem solving and the ability to question, analyse, make informed judgments, deduce and hypothesise - all the skills that are associated with an enterprise culture and entrepreneurship. That is very much part of the learning theories currently informing development in the curriculum.

A second dynamic within the curriculum generally relates to the assessment. We are trying to place more emphasis on what we have called "feed forward" rather than feedback. Traditionally, when students do a test they are given feedback in the form of marks, which tell them how well they have done. They are not much use in telling them what to do next, apart from suggesting that they must do better. If one gives students feed forward, one gives them very constructive comments on what they need to do next. This has a powerful effect on their motivation, but also gives them sense of independence and control over their learning, precisely the kind of self-directed attitudes that the paper brings to the fore.

The third element is about bringing in a variety of learning sites. Mr. Hammond has already spoken about some of the business links and I am sure colleagues in the curriculum development unit will highlight that students do learn in sites other than the classroom. Right down to early childhood education, we are emphasising the idea that the child's environment is the context for learning, not simply the classroom. Seeing learning opportunities outside the classroom is the key and one of the sites of importance in this regard is the virtual site. The introduction of information and communications technology and the increasing availability of broadband connectivity to schools enables a virtual learning site to be created and this encourages the kind of self-directed and self-motivated learning that underpins the entrepreneurial attitudes that the paper suggests should be for all students.

We keep the curriculum under rolling review and, as the paper suggests in terms of the development of indicators for entrepreneurship, we have set out the kind of indicators we would bring to bear in evaluating the curriculum as it develops and ensuring that we keep it up to speed with the entrepreneurial cultures and attitudes that Europe seems to set out for its citizens.

Chairman

Thank you very much for the very interesting presentation. I should have indicated when I was saying that we would try to confine ourselves as closely as we could to entrepreneurship, that the committee hopes to invite the delegates back on at least one occasion before the summer regarding the teaching of the Irish language and foreign languages. If it works out, we will meet each other very often.

I propose to hear the second presentation before we take questions. Mr. Aidan Clifford, acting director of the curriculum development unit, and Margaret Kelly from the Department of Education and Science are present. Ms Kelly is free to chip in during the discussion if she indicates to me that she has something to say. Will Mr. Clifford introduce his colleagues?

Mr Aidan Clifford

On behalf of my colleagues at the CDVC curriculum development unit and the curriculum development centre, Shannon, I thank the committee for the invitation to discuss the ongoing progress in curriculum development and the Green Paper. I am accompanied by Stephen McCarthy, programme manager of the education for reconciliation programme, Aideen Cassidy, national co-ordinator of the junior certificate school programme, and Sheila O'Driscoll, director of the curriculum development centre in Shannon, with which we work in partnership quite frequently.

Both curriculum development organisations have, over the past 30 years, initiated a number of projects which have subsequently been incorporated into the national curriculum. At the heart of both organisations is the professional development of the teacher, the development of the curriculum in partnership with other stakeholders in education and the promotion of the concept of teacher as researcher. The role of both organisations is to complement the work of the Department of Education and Science, the National Council for Curriculum Assessment and other educational institutions.

The twin themes of ongoing progress in curriculum development and the educational aspects of entrepreneurship will be addressed by taking into account the broader social dimensions, combined with a focus on entrepreneurial initiatives promoted to date in the education system.

Mr. Stephen McCarthy

I will deal with the social and political education side of the curriculum development unit's work and the lessons we feel can be drawn from this regarding the introduction of entrepreneurship in the education system. The Green Paper suggests that, among both profit-driven and not-profit-driven organisations, there is a requirement to have quite a sophisticated understanding of the civic, social and political systems, both local and global, in which these organisations operate.

Over the past decade the curriculum development unit has implemented a number of social and political education development projects that have provided important lessons which we think are important to share with the committee. We believe they contribute to the development of entrepreneurship in our education system. In some cases, this will complement very much what both Ms Looney and Mr. Hammond have been saying.

The curriculum development unit's curriculum development projects, while very often innovative and dealing with controversial and difficult issues, have always sought to influence or expand upon and complement the curriculum at national level. Civic, social and political education at junior certificate level, the transition year programme, the leaving certificate applied and the school development planning initiative have in some cases been influenced by CDU curriculum development projects. However, these same subjects, programmes or initiatives have also provided the CDU with opportunities to develop and expand the social and political dimension of education with teachers.

We suggest that it is important to examine the existing curriculum and Department of Education and Science's initiatives, as well as NCCA review and syllabus documents for the possibilities they already provide to develop the concept of entrepreneurship in the education system. There is already a strong sense in the system of curriculum overload.

Materials development, methodology in service and space to reflect are the three most important elements of the curriculum development process. We have also found that it is essential that teachers play an active role in the development and implementation of these elements. The CDU human rights education project, funded by Trócaire, allowed the CDU to work with CSPE and LCA teachers to develop classroom materials that incorporate a social and political perspective at both a local and global level, provide inservice training in active teaching and learning methodologies and provide space for teachers to reflect upon key concepts and principles of social and political education such as rights and responsibilities, democracy, reconciliation, active citizenship and interculturalism. We strongly recommend the direct involvement of teachers in the organisation and implementation of these three elements of curriculum development. This is crucial as it allows teachers develop ownership of the process and confidence to introduce ideas and concepts that up to now may not have been part of their teaching practice. This has implications for teacher training regarding entrepreneurship in the education system.

The poverty, curriculum and classroom project is a CDU project funded by the Combat Poverty Agency. The focus of this project is on developing a model of school-community partnership regarding poverty awareness education. Often schools are totally unaware of anti-poverty projects and activities in the local community. Therefore, the potential that exists for enriching the learning experience of students goes untapped. This project brings together teachers, community development workers and members of the local community to provide real learning experiences for students. School-community partnerships provide real and essential learning opportunities for students. However, partnerships based on trust and equality take time to develop. There are still many barriers to be overcome.

In the Border region, the Northern Ireland conflict has had a major impact on economic and social development. The Border has exacerbated the region's peripherality and has also contributed to higher levels of social exclusion. The region is heavily dependent on traditional and low-productivity industry. The education for reconciliation project, which is funded by the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, is working with teachers from both sides of the Border and is exploring teaching and learning ideas and practices that will allow teachers to introduce and develop the concept of social reconciliation. Social reconciliation is an important prerequisite for economic renewal and social inclusion. However, exploration of civic, social and political ideas in the classroom often involves investigation of difficult and controversial issues. This in turn requires the implementation of teaching and learning styles not traditionally found in our schools.

The whole school approach to interculturalism and inclusion project is funded by the National Committee for Development Education, under the Department of Foreign Affairs, the European Refugee Fund and the Department of Education and Science. The rationale for this project stemmed directly from the effect on schools of the recent and continuing growth in cultural diversity within Irish society. Working with three pilot schools this CDU curriculum and research project adopted a whole school approach in its implementation. The project took into consideration all aspects of the school - its ethos, policy, structures and both the hidden and taught curriculum. The considerable research programme conducted throughout this project has helped each of the schools develop policies and practices that reflect greater equality, inclusion and interculturalism. This type of school-based project, which promotes the creation of an anti-racist and intercultural society, is important for building a value base amongst the wider population. The impact that a school-based project involving management, teachers, students and parents can have on the wider community should never be underestimated. The curriculum development unit is currently advocating the introduction of citizenship studies at leaving certificate established level so that senior cycle students are afforded an opportunity to explore and discuss important contemporary civic, social and political issues. A copy of our proposal has been forwarded to the NCCA for consideration within the context of the senior cycle review currently taking place.

Ms Aideen Cassidy

The junior certificate school programme is a curricular intervention, specifically targeting students who are potential early school leavers in 150 schools around the country. These are the students who, unsupported, would gain little value from the education system. The national implementation of the programme by the Department of Education and Science and the National Council of Curriculum and Assessment began in 1996 following a 17-year pilot phase.

It is a model of curriculum development that is at the heart of the work of the curriculum development unit. It also focuses on the educationally disadvantaged student, as does much of the CDU activity, in an attempt to develop a more inclusive education provision. Teachers engaged with disadvantaged students in their schools were facilitated to meet and to consider the most appropriate framework of support that should be put in place for this very particular cohort of students. Over the years, the framework was refined by these teachers who honed down the model by implementing aspects of the framework in their schools and coming back together to consider its effectiveness. These teachers found that the lack of structures to acknowledge success - outside of the examination - coupled with the students' lack of belief in themselves and their expectation of continued failure were at the root of the problem.

A student profiling system began to emerge as it was clear that the terminal examination was not the only answer. Students at the fringes often have very poor literacy levels. Literacy is a cornerstone of learning, a cornerstone of social inclusion and a path of access into the curriculum and a tool to accessing the wider social and economic world. Exploring ways to raise literacy levels has also been the work of the JCSP team. A demonstration library project, where the impact of fully-equipped school libraries with librarians, is being researched in 11 JCSP schools. This project is an example of how the CDU encourages teachers to make a reality of what they understand can be solutions. They are also encouraged to take risks, to try something new, evaluate it and, through the JCSP initiatives, share successes with other similar schools. Developing ways of shaping and delivering the curriculum to educationally disadvantaged students is best done in partnership with the teachers on the ground. We need to continue to empower teachers to be the curriculum developers. Giving ownership of the curriculum empowers them to respond rapidly within the ever-changing classroom. Access to such development energises and engages. They are more than willing to try out new approaches and are empowered by the process of feedback to other teachers as they in turn become reflective practitioners. Here the teacher is the developer and feeds other developments. Here the teacher is a responsive agent rather than a deliverer.

The junior certificate school programme has given teachers an opportunity to consider what is of value in the curriculum beyond what is currently assessed in the terminal examination. As a result, a wide range of skills and qualities are affirmed as valid and valuable educational achievements. The education system needs to broaden what it values and how it does so, as so many of the future potential entrepreneurs may be lost to our society because of the failure to promote and affirm many critical entrepreneurial attributes. The JCSP model allows students take control of their own learning through a process of formative assessment which is credited by an individualised student profile. Formative profiling, however, is not as yet embedded into the structures of the formal curriculum currently in place at junior cycle and so the need for ongoing curriculum development in this area is still alive and well.

Mr. Clifford

The further education sector should be taken into account when considering entrepreneurship. It is a very dynamic and responsive area of education, in which most students are at the point of entering the world of employment, whether self-employed or as employees. Due to the nature of the FETAC awards, newer modules on the various dimensions to entrepreneurship could be incorporated into the existing provision. Existing modules such as Start Your Own Business, level 2, and Tourism Enterprise, level 2, could be promoted further. Some FETAC courses are specifically designed for those starting their own enterprise, such as Child Care, level 3.

Capacity exists for centres and businesses under the IBEC-sponsored project to develop locally-devised modules which could focus on entrepreneurship. Further development of the existing support services to further education towards developing an entrepreneurial culture should also be considered. Over 40% of the 35,000 candidates presenting for level 2 certification will have business modules in their portfolio. Nearly 300 new centres will be established this year to provide further education courses, some in local enterprise centres.

The FE sector with the FETAC awards at foundation level and levels 1, 2 and 3, has enhanced the capacity of significant numbers of people to participate and contribute more fully to the economy. The total numbers of participants at all levels in 2003 will be in the order of 50,000. This is an area that will continue to expand over the next number of years.

Ms Sheila O’Driscoll

I will be looking at some of the work of the Shannon Curriculum Development Centre over the years regarding entrepreneurship, to look at what has happened in the past through projects and initiatives and use this as the way forward.

Since its establishment in 1972 the central aim of Shannon Curriculum Development Centre has been to inform national policy with regard to second level and second chance education, with particular reference to issues relating to the transition to working life of young Irish Europeans. We have a particular brief regarding second level and also second chance education. In that context, some work has been carried out through the years.

The centre operates on the basis of a developmental philosophy whereby needs are identified on the ground in consultation with the education community and the world of work, projects are designed and implemented on a pilot basis and evaluated and the outcomes are disseminated to the wider community. In all of this, the centre has recognised and supported the central importance of teacher development, school development, the development of appropriate modes and techniques of assessment and the development of school-community liaison.

Shannon was the pioneer organisation which developed the mini-company programme back in 1976. The programme had the aim of giving students first-hand experience of entrepreneurial skills and brought students through the whole process of setting up their own companies, from initial idea and market research, developing a project, all of the managerial aspects such as marketing, quality assurance and customer care with all the management and financial responsibilities to final liquidation. Students were given a full entrepreneurial experience. This was developed and disseminated nationally through the 1980s and 1990s with sponsorship from Bank of Ireland and subsequently from FÁS.

We moved the mini-company programme to a European level in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Shannon mini-company materials were translated in a number of European countries. One very innovative initiative was a structured student exchange programme. Many students are involved in exchanges in European countries. The model we developed was a transnational exchange, in which young people worked together on enterprise activities. The model of development was concerned with partnership, collaboration and teamwork and using the different European languages. This led to the setting up of the European Federation of Mini-Companies and the development of transnational enterprise materials in a number of languages. Assessment and certification is an important part of the system and based on the development of a SCOTVEC model and our transnational experience, we were able to assess the enterprise activity in the different countries.

As I mentioned earlier, our brief also encompasses second chance learners. One of the projects in which Shannon was involved was experiential enterprise training for unemployed adults, in which individuals were facilitated in developing their own business ideas in a supported environment. This led to the development of modules for the NCVA, now FETAC, and the design of appropriate assessment and certification techniques. Shannon was also involved in open distance learning through a project with partners in Iceland, Sweden and Finland in which there was on-line sharing of experiences and discussion of emerging issues regarding both learners and trainers.

Mr. Hammond has already mentioned the mainstreaming of enterprise in the system. However, in the leaving certificate applied, enterprise is part of the experience of every student. Every student must complete enterprise modules. They also use enterprise as part of their tasks and they are examined on enterprise in their final examination. Of course, this has had implications for teacher development. In the LCA, the challenge has been to broaden the experience of enterprise education to teachers right across the system. In the LCA we have English and communications teachers who are very much involved in enterprise activity, supported and assisted by their colleagues.

What does Shannon see as the way forward? We feel that enterprise should not remain static. We need to move forward. We should build on the experience and expertise that is already there and continue the development. As pointed out in the Green Paper, we certainly support the idea of entrepreneurial initiatives in the area of services. We find, within the system, that many of the activities of young people relate to product, as opposed to services, and we would like to see development across the area of services and into wider markets. Also in the Green Paper is the idea of promoting the capacity to adapt to economic changes. At the moment, young people are not looking at the reality of economic change. We also feel that insufficient attention is given to the whole idea of the knowledge-based economy and that too is an area in which we could move forward.

The idea of developing the disposition of the entrepreneur has already been mentioned. We feel that the real challenge is to create a positive image of the entrepreneur and the calculated risk taker. We are not promoting risk taking but calculated risk taking. The use of entrepreneurial experience, whether successful or not, can be an opportunity for learning. We have found throughout the years that most learning takes place when things do not work out well. We should also take affirmative action regarding entrepreneurship for all learners, regardless of gender, and pilot initiatives may be conducted with minorities and second chance learners. Research, we feel, is really needed regarding the impact of enterprise education in the system. One of the areas that needs further development is negotiation with funding agencies. Students encounter specific difficulties opening bank accounts, etc. The professional development of teachers is a central element of this matter. A colleague of mine often speaks about the philosophy of the teacher, "as guide on the side, not sage on the stage".

Mr. Clifford

It is worth mentioning that many of the elements of entrepreneurship raised in the Green Paper are reflected in the existing second level mainstream curriculum. A curriculum mapping exercise could help to identify these links more closely. Programmes such as transition year, the leaving certificate vocational programme and the leaving certificate applied programme, which have been mentioned, have a particular focus on enterprise education. It is worth noting that resources such as Enterprise Encounter, devised by the city and county enterprise boards in conjunction with the second level support service, are helping to promote best practice in these programmes. The development of entrepreneurship to any significant extent in second level education will require schools to develop an entrepreneurial culture and support will be needed for such an enterprise.

There is considerable scope to develop entrepreneurship at further education level and a multiagency or interdepartmental approach is worth considering. The idea of a campus-style dimension, outlined in the Green Paper, is worth exploring in the larger further education colleges. The Shannon experience has demonstrated that significant development can take place when sustained support is made available to schools. There are many references to social justice issues and disadvantage in the Green Paper. Values such as democracy, inclusion, human rights, active citizenship and participation play a part in the formation of an ethical perspective in our everyday social and economic life and should be considered when dealing with entrepreneurship.

Addressing educational disadvantage ensures greater participation in entrepreneurial life. The development of literacy and numeracy allows greater access to the economic world. The provision of access to areas that have an inherent innovative and creative dimension, such as the arts, should also be considered. The seeds of an educational response to an entrepreneurial culture exist. Such a culture will mirror the values of our society. It is worth reflecting on these values, while identifying and promoting the particular skills of entrepreneurship.

Chairman

I thank all the speakers for their contributions. They have made a wonderful effort to separate entrepreneurship to some extent, although it is impossible to do so in the context of an integrated curriculum. Several members of the committee wish to ask questions or offer constructive suggestions at this stage. The order of speakers has been agreed in advance - Deputy Enright will be followed by Senator Fitzgerald, Deputy Stanton, Senator Ulick Burke, Senator Minihan, Deputy Crowe, Deputy Curran and, finally, Deputy Mulcahy. Deputy Andrews may also speak.

Deputy Enright

I thank members of the delegation for their presentations. Mr. Clifford's concluding remarks have reminded me of the first point I wish to make. I welcome the fact that this discussion is taking place, that the Green Paper has been published and that we are examining entrepreneurship. In welcoming these developments, however, I wish to voice my concerns about the fact that aspects of Irish education are being seen as commodities. This matter has not been mentioned today, but it is developing in Irish education. People are looking at students as commodities, rather than considering the broader perspective of education. It is possible, in dealing with entrepreneurship, that we could go down the road of seeing students as people who can help us to make some money, as distinct from people who need to be given a well-balanced education. This answers Mr. Clifford's concluding comments about the arts, CSPE, etc., to some extent. He has a vision that we should concentrate on other areas as well. I will return to the issue of entrepreneurship as a whole.

A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the alternative leaving certificate programmes, such as the LCVP and the LCA. I am concerned that many schools are not in a position, for various reasons such as lack of teachers or lack of space, to offer the LCA option. Such problems are encountered in some instances in schools with students who most need the benefits of the programmes. Does the curriculum development unit have any suggestions for addressing such problems? What plans are in train to ensure that every school can offer the programmes? I have encountered cases of children with special needs who would like to participate in the programmes but are unable to do so. In the foreword to the discussion document produced by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, a question is asked about whether the leaving certificate is still the dominant force in Irish education. The only answer to such a question is "Yes". It is unfortunate, in many ways, that the leaving certificate continues to be so dominant, but that will be the case as long as the present system of entry to third level education remains in place.

Students continue to make subject choices based on the likely points return. I appreciate that this matter has been examined in the document. They do not necessarily look at their own skills, as they believe it is easier to get a high grade in certain subjects. I do not wish to mention them, but we are all aware of the subjects which are perceived to be easier. They might not always be correct, but second level students choose their subjects on that basis. While some of them receive very good career guidance, I do not think the qualities individual students have to offer are examined in enough depth. It could also be argued that one is too young when making choices after the junior certificate, if one is not doing transition year. The choices made at that stage will affect where one goes for a long period thereafter. If one does not choose a science or business subject, for example, one will be unable to study science or business at third level. This important issue needs to be looked at. I assume that the NCCA receives a great deal of feedback regarding this matter and I wonder how it plans to address it. Is dealing with it part of the NCCA's future plans? I am aware that a report into the points system was produced in 1999 and I would like to know how it will be addressed.

The junior certificate courses have been discussed today. The introduction of a new junior certificate science syllabus, which everybody welcomes, was the subject of some debate at the teachers' conferences last week. I have visited schools in which science laboratories are in an appalling condition and I am sure this experience is shared by other members of the committee. I take the point that it is difficult to introduce a new syllabus in a fair manner, as the students of lovely schools in which all the facilities needed for experiments are in place will be at an advantage compared to those who will never see an experiment taking place in front of them. This point needs to be made.

Regarding the leaving certificate once more, I wish to state that the LCVP and the LCA still have quite an academic emphasis. Perhaps some of the members of the delegations will disagree with my assertion that greater emphasis could be placed on other things. This is another example of an issue that relates to the facilities that schools have. If a school wishes to offer some technical subjects but does not have enough space, it will be unable to do so. It is another problem that exists within the system.

The revision of syllabi in recent years has been mentioned. Will there be more revisions in the coming years? What is the timetable for the implementation of new syllabi?

We have to look at how subjects are taught. This relates once more to the points that have been made about the leaving certificate. The argument that teachers are being forced to teach to exam papers, as opposed to teaching to the curriculum, can be strongly made. Teachers have not necessarily chosen to do this. A question about the frog on last year's leaving certificate biology paper is a good example of something that is on the curriculum, but which nobody ever thought would come up in the examination, as it was not seen as a large element of the curriculum. There was a large hullabaloo when the question appeared, even though the frog is on the course. Teachers had been teaching to the biology exam papers rather than to the biology curriculum, partly because of pressure from parents and students. Answers are needed regarding this matter.

I would like the delegations to give their opinions about the implementation of the LCVP, LCA, transition year and CSPE programmes. How successful have the programmes been? Has there been uniformity of implementation? Parents in one county might say that the transition year programme is fantastic, as a consequence of their children's experiences, but parents in another area might give totally different feedback. The same is true of the LCVP and LCA programmes. If members of the delegations would like to make comments or suggest improvements, they are welcome to do so. I do not believe in uniformity in what is available and the choices people can make, as different schools have different needs. I am a strong believer in transition year and support it wholeheartedly.

Comments have been made in the past year - among others by the Institute of Engineers - that transition year introduces students to part-time work at an early age. This sudden emphasis on getting students into work could bring out their entrepreneurial skills, which would be positive. However, one must also consider the importance of their studies. Perhaps the witnesses would comment on where the balance between work and studies lies. Obviously, once students enter a workplace for work experience - a vital aspect of the transition year - they are suddenly introduced to a new environment and while they are not generally paid for work experience, they see other people being paid. Entrepreneurs tend to want to make money. How can we strike a balance in this regard?

Although I do not have the details with me, I understand a study was done last year comparing the experiences of transition year for boys and girls. While I am not sure who carried it out, I understand it found that girls had a more positive experience than boys. Will the witnesses comment on this? How can we ensure that boys and girls have equally positive experiences of transition year?

To return to the first presentation, the assessment for learning initiative is under way in Cork and Sligo. Is this a pilot initiative and, if so, does the NCCA hope to introduce it nationally? The rebalancing of the junior cycle syllabus started with certain subjects. Why were these subjects chosen? Was the reason that they seemed to have a heavier content - bigger books is one way to put it - or was there another reason?

Ms Cassidy talked about the junior certificate school programme. Where do the students who participate in this programme generally go after the junior certificate? I am aware Ms Cassidy will not be able to answer the question in full. What programmes do they take up at that point? Is it generally the established leaving certificate or do they take the other options? How is its success evaluated and how successful has it been to date?

On the points made by Mr. Clifford on further education, I am glad there was a focus on this area and that someone came before us to address the issue. What is the take-up of these courses? Where are they available? I do not expect to receive answers to these questions today, but perhaps the witnesses could provide us with details of the structures in place - I presume the vocational education committees offer the courses - the counties doing well in this area and the success rates of those who have completed them?

Senator Fitzgerald

I do not know if there are any more questions, as they all appear to have been covered. I welcome the NCCA and the curriculum development unit and compliment them on the work they have been doing over the years in terms of evolving programmes and exploring the need for reform of curricula and syllabi. I became aware at first hand of the marvellous work carried out by the CDU in the 1980s, which it continues to do, in anticipating and keeping abreast of needs in society, the community, enterprise, etc. I compliment the presentation made today which has been informative and enlightening. I will be brief in view of the number of areas already covered.

One of the fundamental things - of which there are, unfortunately, many - which struck me is that if one were a cynic, a possibility also adverted to by Deputy Enright, one could argue that in view of recent trends there is no need to include enterprise in the curriculum as young children coming through the schools have already acquired considerable experience of enterprise. Even at primary level some children are working part time on the quiet. They then continue to work during second level and are familiar with the practical side of enterprise by the time they begin the leaving certificate. This raises serious issues, particularly in terms of the transition year, on which I wish to concentrate for a moment.

A report was published in 1999 on the experience of transition year among the 1994 cohort of students at junior certificate. As I recall, it suggested that many benefits were to be gained from transition year. It showed that in terms of points, the average gain during transition year was some 46 points, about five short of that achieved by the repeat leaving certificate cohort. The latter group of students had completed a three-year programme, whereas the transition year group had only completed a two-year programme, yet there was a difference of only five points in terms of the additional points they obtained. This makes a strong case for those availing of the transition year vis-à-vis those who stayed within the formal structures.

The 1999 report articulated a number of other benefits of transition year. However, a report published at the end of last year by, I believe, Dr. McDonagh, expressed alarm about what appeared to be a reversal or at least a significant divergence in the results of the 1999 study. The new study appeared to show that there has been a reversal in thinking or at least a serious withdrawal from the earlier enthusiastic endorsement of the transition year initiative. If I am exaggerating anything, I would be delighted to be corrected.

This poses many questions. As I recall, the most recent report called for a serious re-examination of the transition year. It noted highly unfavourable developments, including the introduction of second level students to the world of part-time work at a very young age and the fact that this was being facilitated by the transition programme. It also highlighted that students at second level entering part-time work appeared to have a stronger focus on work than on study. These results showed a reversal in the trend identified in the 1999 study.

This development poses many questions. What has happened in the interim? Why was the 1999 study so definitively positive in favour of the transition year? Why is a contrary view, that transition year is not as laudable as it appeared, now being taken? Are there trends in society which impinge on this development?

I have some views on this issue and will focus on one of them. I believe - I have no facts to back up my argument - that there must be empirical evidence to suggest that the performance of those who do not opt for the transition year is negatively affected by those students who opt to do a transition year. Let us take the case of two fellow students in the same class in the same year, one of whom does the transition year while the other proceeds within the structured programme offered in the school. It is inevitable - I believe it is also the experience in our communities - that the student who takes transition year will impinge on the focus of the student who does not. Not alone is the romanticisation of the importance of part-time work for second level students promoted and facilitated, but the person participating in transition year also influences his or her colleague who chooses not to do so.

A number of aspects of this issue need to be examined. If there is such a divergence between the 1999 report and the 2002 report, it raises questions, including the contribution the transition year is making to the promotion of an enterprise culture among students. We discussed earlier the notion of more inclusive education. What contribution is the transition year making to the promotion of results for points, as adverted to by Deputy Enright? The points system and the attainment of places on courses based on that system is still central, whether we like it or not. Therefore, there is a lot of conflict. The role the transition year is playing is one of the issues at the heart of this matter.

Deputy Stanton

I welcome the various delegations and thank them for their presentations. They mentioned, once or twice, the problem of curriculum overload, and we have received so much information that we are almost overloaded ourselves. However, it has been really good and we will probably need some time to go through some of the documents and analyse some of the fantastic measures being implemented. I compliment everybody on what is going on because it is really exciting and should be encouraged and developed.

A sentence on page 5 of the Green Paper jumps out at me. It states, "Entrepreneurship is first and foremost a mindset". It also refers to creativity, innovation with sound management and the adaptation of a business to optimise its potential. I keep thinking of words like "self-esteem" and the importance of self-belief. The Green Paper states that entrepreneurship is about people and also alludes to risk taking.

The NCCA document, in particular, refers to the second strategy and focuses on the general dispositions that are associated with entrepreneurial attitude and culture. This made me think of school climate. How can we foster risk taking, independence and the spirit of free enterprise among our students and, at the same time, run an orderly school?

There are many references to failure in the Green Paper and the need to treat this in a different way. I am reminded of one of the great inventors of the past who was asked if he was disenchanted and disgusted with all the failures associated with trying to invent something or other. He said, "No, I am not. I am delighted with that failure because now I know one other thing that does not work, which means I must be closer to my goal." His mindset was totally different to that which I think pertains in many of our schools, although this is changing. The mindset of risk taking and encouraging self-esteem is the key to the issue. What is being done to encourage that in our schools?

Does the establishment of students' councils, for example, impact positively on the spirit of entrepreneurship in schools? How many school councils are in existence, especially at second level? What is being done to assess their effectiveness and the involvement of students? There is a transition year programme in the CBS close to me in Midleton. In recent years this school has developed a business module in the transition year, has won competitions at European level and has been highly successful. I have seen the excitement and work that the young lads have put in. It has been phenomenal and has unleashed an unbelievable amount of interest and energy. The lads cannot be stopped they are so interested and the creativity is boundless. We need to encourage this more and more.

School climate is important in this respect. The Chairman will agree that a teacher never knows where his or her influence stops. One bad teacher in a school, in the sense of being discouraging, can do terrible damage to the self-esteem of students. What is being done to encourage teachers to be more encouraging and to reverse the old trend whereby many teachers were discouraging. I refer not only to the teachers involved in the modules about which we have spoken, but to all teachers. As a teacher, I know that one teacher can devastate the self-esteem of students, who are at an age when they are often very vulnerable and need to be encouraged.

Page 7 of the Green Paper refers to entrepreneurship unlocking personal potential, the criteria of security and a level of independence and the fulfilment of higher needs, such as self-realisation and independence, through entrepreneurship. It states that the achievement of self-fulfilment is one of the reasons many people become entrepreneurs. This is at the peak of Maslow's triangle.

I am very interested in out-of-school activity. It has been mentioned that the classroom should not be the only site of learning. What links have the delegates with the various youth organisations throughout the country, through which informal education takes place that allows young people to get involved in all kinds of projects in a voluntary capacity? The beauty of youth work is that it promotes volunteerism. Is anything being done through the youth organisations to encourage entrepreneurship or does the remit or the delegates' organisations not extend that far? It may not. If one looks at Foróige, for instance, and the various youth organisations it supports, one will notice the considerable potential for interlinking with what the delegates are proposing. This would overspill back into the schools and it links in with the leadership idea I spoke of and the notion of the school council.

I am taken with the need for research on the impact of enterprise education. What is proposed in this regard, if anything? Will the delegates comment on the skills promoted by Gaisce? They unleash potential. Self-belief, self-actualisation and self-starting are central to the notion of entrepreneurship. We are all inclined to place more value on the points system associated with the leaving certificate rather than on the other skills being mentioned? Is any thought being given to giving credit for these other skills, such as community involvement? Very often, employers look at results when interviewing people and then they look for the other skills. How can we encourage a system whereby these skills are credited - I do not want to use the word "measured". Will the NCCA, in particular, try to bring this in?

Should we not be careful that continuous assessment does not become continuous harassment? It is a danger if we have the stress of leaving certificate examinations right across the board. School, from pre-school onwards, should be a positive experience for students and we need to change the climate in schools to encourage risk taking and the adventurous spirit that is required. Not everyone will be an entrepreneur. Maybe the delegates will address this matter as well. The work of FETAC is very positive.

Senator U. Burke

I welcome the delegation. I fear the fantastic work both groups have been doing down the years to develop the curricula will effectively be brought to naught by the entry requirements of the third level institutions. Although we have mentioned primary level, secondary level and further education, we have left out of the picture the monsters that are directing all aspects of senior cycle education and what precedes it. Third level institutions must be straight about what they want other than points based on results. They have been let go too far with regard to the direction in which education has been going over the last few years. I understand from the delegations' presentations that they are investigating the idea of a three-year senior cycle rather than the present two years plus transition year. In that context, I can see the demise of the transition year programme as it was initiated.

The transition year programme was initiated under former Deputy Ray Burke as a pilot scheme in my own school, Garbally College, Ballinasloe. It was evident that students who participated in the programme achieved higher grades in comparison with those who had not done so, because they had a further year of experience and maturity. It would be a regressive step if, for any reason, the Department and the Minister took a step to incorporate a three-year cycle or eliminate transition year from the curriculum. Perhaps one of the officials from the Department of Education and Science could say when we are going to take on the third level institutions regarding their demands.

The Department and respective Ministers have been miserly and niggardly in the extreme with regard to the time allocated to introducing innovative change in any particular subject area. There needs to be a realisation within the Department that the introduction of such changes needs time. As we sit here, changes are being introduced, yet the vast majority of teachers have no way of getting involved in inservice training. All the good work will come to naught unless there is definite provision. Many people say teachers are getting paid enough but I am not talking about compensating them for the time they spend on inservice training. I remember the introduction of a change in the syllabus about ten years ago when, having spent two days, the compensation was single figures of pounds - such was the response of the Department of Education and Science to inservice training. One co-ordinator of the inservice training that day said that we would have to make imaginary keyboards from cardboard. People nearly fell off their chairs but it was real. The presenter, who had been engaged by the Department, was given the idea that this training could be presented on a piece of cardboard. Does the Department call that innovation?

Given the time factor of any school day or week, new subjects mean new demands, particularly regarding science subjects which require double class periods and so on. We can see the crisis in which science is despite being facilitated with such preferential time slots. If we continue to overload on innovation and ideas under the present structure of school hours, we are going down the road of reform when the key is how it can be delivered practically at school level given the time restrictions. I hope those issues will be taken into account as well as the fine ideas that have been discussed today. The leaving certificate examinations are sat and results are achieved but, whether we are dealing with exams at Christmas, Easter or mocks and other assessments, we are looking and thinking forward and we encourage young people. We must have some form of assessment in order to see what direction they have to go. On reports, we might write, "must do better", but what is the alternative? One of the most striking things in the presentations today is the question of literacy. If the approach to literacy is not right from the start, the majority of students who are lacking in that area are lost forever, regardless of the best intentions.

Senator Minihan

I welcome members of the delegation and thank them for their presentation. We can never lose sight of the basic values of education and what we are trying to achieve. The danger we face is that, as society evolves and develops, we tweak and adapt our curricula to meet the challenges but lose sight of the basic requirements of developing personal and natural skills of young people and enshrining in them a sense of basic values so they can fully partake in society. I always caution against losing that original aim to respond to economic or other challenges because, whatever natural skills people have, the first responsibility we have is to provide them with the basic skills to fully partake in society as basically decent people with a sense of value.

Teachers are the messengers and how the message is communicated and how the messenger responds to the modern era, particularly in the area of information technology, is vital. One must be careful when one speaks at committees like this because one may be accused of dumping on teachers. If one tries to talk about one's own experiences, as I did one day regarding my own children's school, one will suddenly have the school jumping on one to give all sorts of explanations. It is difficult to zone in on these issues.

Children today know how to use the DVD or the video without being able to explain why. Old fogeys like me, in their eyes, are just not with it. The advances in information technology over the last 15 or 20 years have been phenomenal and I wonder whether we have kept pace in the communication of our message to this generation. In our day, children went into the library on a Saturday morning and withdrew a couple of books, but now they are focused on obtaining the information instantaneously using the Internet and so on. Making the subject exciting for them is probably the biggest challenge in the education system.

We can change syllabuses and programmes, but it is the methodology that is important. Young people seem to be receiving on a different frequency. We can talk about philosophy all day long and people can bring forward curricula and so on, but if we do not change the method of communicating the message we are wasting a lot of time. Greater emphasis must be placed on this. I accept that progress is being made, greater emphasis is needed because we have lost the pace. If parents look at their communication with their children, they can see how far off the mark they are.

The on-line survey was very interesting. I would have liked to see it further broken down: What, for example, was the view of the teacher or the parent? From the point of view of transition year, in particular, I am quite dismissive of its findings. Parents, teachers and students all have views on it but these views have all been put together. A breakdown of the results might show quite different messages.

Transition year has been dealt with by previous speakers. One of the things we must acknowledge is that this varies considerably from school to school. What is very successful in one school may be unsuccessful in another. Before Christmas, I had occasion to call for a revisiting of transition year and I was jumped on straight away by a number of schools and obliged to enter into debate with a number of teachers. They were probably from schools who quite justifiably had a gripe with what I was saying because their transition years were very successful. I cannot mention my own experiences without everybody jumping on me, but the reality is that the programme varies from school to school and there are parents who will say it was very successful for one son and not for another because they were in different schools. There is a challenge there.

We should not shoot the messenger, however. The time has come to revisit transition year. The initial values and ideas in the establishment of transition year were laudable - to help students escape from a very structured environment and take greater responsibility. However, young people are taking on part-time jobs - it is a reflection of society - and the removal from structured learning is having a detrimental effect on a certain percentage of them before they approach the two most crucial years in their second level education. Perhaps we should go back and incorporate a greater structure into transition year, although this is not what we set out to do initially - we set out to de-structure education. Now, however, the time has come to reconsider the matter.

The points system was also mentioned. It has outlived its usefulness - the code has been cracked. Deputy Enright referred to the selective direction of students towards certain subjects. I had personal experience of this - I will face the music after saying this - when my eldest son was steered away from honours maths because of the amount of time he would have to put into it to achieve a good score, when he was quite capable of getting an A or a B in pass maths, which would get him more points than a C in honours maths. Instead, he was to take up classical studies or home economics or something, in which he would develop——

Senator U. Burke

This is the Progressive Democrats' philosophy.

Senator Minihan

This is the difficulty with being honest. Unfortunately, when one tries to be honest about one's own experience people attempt to turn it into party policy. That is a sad reflection on the contributor rather than on me. The point is that the code has been cracked, with the result that in certain schools students are being pointed in certain directions just to obtain the entry requirements for college. The time has come for a total re-evaluation. There has certainly been a drop in numbers taking the subjects that require a greater level of work to achieve a good score. Are we really achieving what we want to achieve with students? We receive submissions from people in engineering and science. The subjects required to enter these professions are demanding and require more hours than some other subjects, and there has been a fall-off in numbers.

With regard to social skills, I return to what I said at the outset about the basic values we are trying to enshrine in people. With the various programmes that are in place, we could introduce some modern thinking. For example, in science, on the one hand we have projects and various ideas - I understand about the new syllabus and the lack of laboratory facilities - but at the same time there is an educational programme about drugs and smoking and so on. There should be greater linkage between those educational programmes and the science subjects. For example, the effects of smoking could be introduced into the science debate. Two purposes would then be served; we would teach science but also educate in other fields. This could be a unique project on the junior certificate syllabus and would be of benefit to young people.

The elderly are an important group in society. Values should be instilled in young people to encourage them to appreciate the elderly. We could have greater integration in this subject. Society has changed; many young people do not know their grandparents well, or do not meet them as frequently as we did in the past. This can be followed through to a lack of respect for older people. There is a very vibrant community of what I will call the young elderly - represented by organisations such as the senior citizens' parliament and so on - who want to contribute to society. Much could be achieved by asking representatives of these organisations to attend sessions in schools under the social awareness programme. Too many young people have no contact with senior citizens and it changes their whole perspective of older people throughout their lives.

We now live in a multicultural society and this is a huge challenge for people who must develop syllabuses and curricula. Reading the figures and statistics in certain schools, the number of different nationalities can be quite frightening. It is a huge challenge for us in educating our young people that people do have different perspectives from the point of view of cultures, religions and so on. We should address this before it is too late. We are trying to do this, but speed is required because the situation is changing so rapidly.

The area of entrepreneurship has been covered quite broadly and I was trying to make general comments. Although entrepreneurship is crucial to our economic development and our future, I would like to urge caution. I am nervous in case we push it too far, thereby losing the basic ethos of what we are trying to do with young people and how we educate them. It is right that we encourage them in the area of entrepreneurship and some of the examples that have been given, such as establishing companies in schools, are fantastic. I am encouraged when children ask me about shares and discuss projects where they are given a certain notional amount of money to spend, as it is good that they should have such awareness. We must strike a balance, however, by ensuring that we do not make children believe that school is all about learning how to make money. The basic philosophy of education must be kept at the top of the agenda at all times. I will conclude on that note. I thank the delegations for their time and for attending this meeting.

Deputy Crowe

I welcome the members of the delegations. The problem with all papers before the committee is that is difficult to do justice to the issues involved. The many ideas in the papers will keep the committee busy for a long time. The first question I would like to ask relates to the NCCA's curriculum review. Does the review cover all aspects of facilitating cross-Border curricula? Does the NCCA feel that it is possible to harmonise curricula - to develop a joint curriculum - on both sides of the Border? I am very interested in this area, which I do not think was addressed in the NCCA's paper, and I will come back to it on another occasion.

I agree with some of the ideas in the European Commission's paper, but not with others. It refers to entrepreneurship as the mindset and process to create and develop economic activity by blending risk-taking, creativity and innovation with sound management. I agree and disagree with some of the phrases used. The Green Paper asks whether we should be equipped with the skills to turn ambitions into successful ventures and this, in turn, raises the question of access to education. One of the issues raised by the document is the question of the digital divide. Some schools have problems in accessing advanced computer technologies - it seems to depend on the area in which the school is located. The document states it is essential that the framework conditions are supported, to allow firms to develop and grow. I do not know what is meant by "and not usefully hinder contraction and exit. . . . " and the reference to relaxing regulations.

The fact that private investors have expressed the need for incentives such as tax breaks is nothing new, but many people would argue that there are too many tax breaks at present. The suggestion in the Green Paper that a social protection system, tailored to the needs of entrepreneurs, would make entrepreneurship more attractive is something that is touched on in the delegation's document. The Green Paper states that the education system can provide both skills and exposure as a contribution to fostering entrepreneurship and we would all agree with that. The European Commission found that most member states, to varying degrees, are now committed to promoting the teaching of entrepreneurship in their education systems. This leads one to wonder what kind of teaching and what type of entrepreneurship will be involved. Will the people before profit model be adopted? This matter was addressed.

The document presented to the committee today demonstrated a greater level of social awareness and touched on many of the issues about which I am concerned. All members of the committee will agree that life-long learning is an effective means of building skills, but how can we adapt society around that? The concept of school-community partnership, which I favour, was also referred to in the document. I was excited by some of the programmes involving students, schools and communities that were mentioned, as they represent the way forward for education in Ireland. I agree with the sentiments expressed on the Border region, as the conflict in the North has had a major impact. Maps of Ireland show there is a lack of infrastructure, such as railway systems, in such areas and this plays a huge role in disadvantage. I would like the idea that social reconciliation should be a prerequisite for economic renewal and social inclusion to be further developed and explored. I was much more excited by the ideas in the paper we received today, such as those aimed at tackling educational disadvantage and developing the junior certificate.

I have some concerns about the direction in which we are going. The fact that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is the lead Department may be causing these concerns. The delegation before the committee seems to have a better concept of the impact of these matters on the community. The proposals we have heard today will affect many of the groups with which I and other Deputies deal. We need to focus on this area to a much greater extent and I am glad the delegation's document did so.

Deputy Andrews

I thank the Chair and I welcome the witnesses. I apologise for my late arrival. Having quickly reviewed the papers handed out today, I am struck by the thought that we should not fix what is not broken. Irish entrepreneurship has emerged stronger than it has ever been from a period in Irish society. It has become dynamic beyond anybody's dreams and withstands comparison with entrepreneurship in any other European country. I do not believe a decision to tinker with the system that produced such a period of growth in entrepreneurship should be taken lightly. It should be done only if a real problem exists, but I am not sure that it does. It is certain that there are problems in certain schools, but I am not sure there is a problem on a general basis.

I was struck by a question about the leaving certificate while reading the survey in the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment's document. Although a very small sample was taken, it is hugely significant that 43% agree and 39% strongly agree with the question. Everybody is reporting that the leaving certificate is flawed and we all know that to be true, but it is worth bearing in mind that it has public trust. It is vital that an examination as democratic as the leaving certificate should continue to have public support, especially as it is such an old examination - our grandparents did the leaving certificate. This is another example of the importance of not fixing what is not broken. Deputy Stanton referred to a type of credit system, but the introduction of such a system would lead to a more subjective form of analysis of one's performance. The leaving certificate and the points system are clearly objective, but they are not perfect. Although it has problems, it enjoys public trust and support, which is crucial.

I would like to ask a general question on the 150 schools in which the junior certificate programme was rolled out. Is there co-ordination with the school retention programmes? Specific criteria relating to the number of students that stay in school allow schools to qualify for the retention programme, which involves a financial investment. Is there co-ordination and are the schools to be involved in the programme assessed on the same basis?

Senator Tuffy

I thank the delegations. I am sorry I was late, but I managed to read through the papers quickly. I welcome the ongoing work of the NCCA and CDVC. I would like to pick up on a number of points made about the transition year programme. I notice from the survey that the respondents were much more positive about the transition year programme than they were about the leaving certificate. This enthusiasm related especially to work-related, personal and social skills. The transition year does not enjoy such a high level of support in the survey of its perception among the public. While the respondents are very supportive of it, they feel there is a lack of public support, which is interesting. Transition year is a good programme and while there are issues which need to be examined, it should be here to stay.

External factors, some of which were raised by Senator Fitzgerald, must also be considered. Unlike today, there were no jobs available for students in the 1980s. Society must recognise this. These jobs are now available and the abolition of transition year would not change that. One has to work with this reality, possibly by controlling the extent to which young people are engaged in part-time work. The issue needs to be examined in terms of curriculum development.

It is important that qualifications can be attained in transition year, which are recognised regardless of what the student does later. I know this is already the case in many schools. The ICT area is particularly important in this regard because students who later choose different careers such as teaching can bring qualifications such as ICT with them. This is very important in terms of our competitiveness. I read recently of a report which shows that Ireland has the most potential in terms of ICT competitiveness. This issue and other opportunities could be addressed during transition year.

Pre-school education was mentioned in terms of curriculum development. I was struck by the question as to how one can deliver curriculum development in this area given that we do not have a structure of State pre-school education?

Deputy Andrews made a good point regarding the points system. It is a good system and the current position of our country has been achieved thanks to our relatively good and fair education system. This is not to say there are not problems. I went to school in the 1980s and did honours French and Irish, yet I cannot speak either of them. The education system certainly failed me in that sense, although I am aware there have been improvements since then.

The points system is fair. It is the points race rather than the system which is at fault. The reason there is a points race lies in our attitude to third level education, an issue I raised previously in this committee. Third level education is regarded here as a once-off opportunity and our attitude is that students must go directly from school into third level. This is the reason for the pressure in the points system. If we restructured third level education in terms of delivery and access, we would make a major difference by relieving pressure to obtain points. While I accept there is a need to improve the curriculum and the current system, the points system is not the main problem.

Chairman

I am conscious that the meeting has been under way for almost two hours. If we allow a debate on the points raised by members, we could face another two hours, which is not desirable.

Deputy Stanton

That was Senator Minihan's fault.

Chairman

Deputy Stanton and Senator Minihan can discuss those matters in a different forum. I remind the committee that, as Deputy Crowe stated, we are not the lead committee with regard to the Green Paper on Entrepreneurship in Europe, which has been referred to us. The principal business of the committee is to respond to the Green Paper; the presentations made today have been extremely useful in directing our response to it in the educational context and from an educational perspective. Ideally, we should issue our response by completing a report, which should include the two presentations made today. It should also include the transcript of the proceedings of the meeting as this would reveal the views of the various members and even a little conflict. I would also like to accommodate some kind of response to the questions raised. It will be impossible to do this during this meeting as it should conclude at around 1 p.m.

Deputy Stanton

Do we have a deadline?

Chairman

We do not have a deadline. I listened very carefully to what has been said and much of it was not directly related to the Green Paper. I am also conscious that almost all the contributors will appear before the committee before the summer, some of them twice. We can deal with the issue of the philosophy of education then. I see Senator Fitzgerald wants to make a helpful suggestion.

Senator Fitzgerald

Some central issues were covered today which could not be fairly addressed without allowing considerable time to be spent on them. I have two suggestions. First, we should invite the deputations to make a written response to the committee on the issues raised and, second, the Chairman might consider providing a further opportunity for the committee to address some key issues such as the points system. Everybody here has strong views on the points system, which is a central feature of our education system. It would not do the issue justice to have a response from the deputations today. This is not a reflection on them, but on the structure of the committee. For this reason, I propose we request a written response to our queries and that we be given a further opportunity to address some of the main issues raised today, including the points system.

Chairman

That is a helpful suggestion.

Deputy Enright

My suggestion may not be as helpful. Members of the committee and the deputations are here now. While nobody wants to be here until 7 p.m. or 8 p.m., we should give the NCCA and the CDU time to respond to questions they feel they can answer. We accept we all asked questions to which they could not respond now. However, if each of the contributors were to reply to our points for four or five minutes, further details could be sent to us afterwards.

Chairman

As we agreed to have an element of question and answer to the proceedings, we are obliged to have some kind of a Q&A session now. I allowed the two presentations to go 12 minutes over time and members I would normally confine to four minutes were allowed to contribute for between seven and 13 minutes. This is a difficulty we face, which has nothing to do with the witnesses. I suggest we now take responses to issues raised which related to the Green Paper with a view to addressing the other issues at further meetings.

Ms Looney

The range of the debate and the questions were very broad covering everything from the aims and purposes of education to the nature of society. I will confine my responses to issues raised relating to the leaving certificate and entrepreneurship and will address, in particular, some of the points raised by the first two questioners, after which I will briefly discuss issues related to the points commission and how they impact on entrepreneurship. We will return to this issue in the future.

It is important to note that the work the NCCA is currently doing on senior cycle education arises from the recommendations of the points commission. It had two dimensions, the first of which was that, on reflection, the points commission felt that the use of the points system as a means of entry to third level education was probably the best system that could be found at the time. It recommended, therefore, that the system be established as the gateway but also proposed that if this was to occur, the gateway must be broadened. It, therefore, asked the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment to start examining the way in which students obtain points and whether it could be made more equitable and broadened to include, for example, the kinds of things mentioned by Deputy Stanton. This might not extend to giving points for a Gaisce award, but could include a recognition that some aspect of the leaving certificate qualification would include these sorts of achievements. My colleague, Mr. Hammond, might take up some of these.

It is important when we discuss the leaving certificate that we separate the programme, the examination, the qualification and the purpose for which it is used as they are all different. Traditionally, this has not been done. When we talk about the leaving certificate we mean all of these factors, which interact very strongly. As a number of Deputies and Senators suggested, the purpose of the leaving certificate - the fact that it is used to obtain points - has the biggest effect.

However, I remind the committee that it is not used for points for everybody, which is probably one of the reasons it is decidedly undemocratic. If one is not a candidate for higher level education, one's entire educational experience can be shaped by the fact that one is following a programme and examination designed to serve the needs of third level education. This is problematic and is reflected in the senior cycle paper. It should be considered when looking towards developing senior cycle education.

Does the current system militate against an entrepreneurial spirit? Deputy Stanton flagged the idea of the tension between school climate and entrepreneurial spirit. I want to record a short anecdote. I was speaking to a group of school principals about the need to develop dispositions in students such as independent thinking, critical skills and the ability to think on one's feet when a principal stopped me and told me he had one such student but he had to expel him the previous week, the reason being that these are precisely the kind of characteristics which run counter to the operation of an efficient school. When we have a culture that requires people to get through a very narrow gate, there is no room to value those kinds of skills. If one broadens the gate, then one can start to value them and include them in the qualification. The advent of the qualifications framework, which is a major development in the Irish education system, enables us to begin to reflect on the kind of qualification we are giving students. Currently, all we are giving them is a piece of paper with a set of letters, which is not a good account of their time in education, especially if the letters are not As and Bs. It is only a measure of their examination. All of those issues are addressed in the senior cycle paper. That helps in setting out the issues regarding broadening assessment, including the aspects that can support a more entrepreneurial culture in schools.

Some members of the committee raised the issue of teaching and learning methods in terms of the entrepreneurial culture in classrooms. They are shaped by the examination and it is not simply a matter of strategic subject choices made after junior certificate. Strategic subject choices are made on entry into first year. Our research demonstrates that the subjects one chooses coming into post-primary schools and the levels at which one chooses to take these subjects are critical for one's entire career. It is not one's choices at the age of 15 that are critical, but those made at the age of 12. Perhaps insufficient attention is paid to that. We focus a lot on choices after or before transition year.

In terms of teaching and learning and how people engage with these, the impact of the examination is considerable. We talk about how teachers teach to the test. The examination has become so dominant that students learn to the test and, therefore, demand a classroom method that is largely about getting them ready for the examination. Some research is being carried out on what is known as a didactic contract - an unwritten contract between teachers and students - whereby the students imply that they will behave and request the teachers not to try anything fancy and to get them through the test. This is a good deal from the teachers' perspective. Some of the research emerging on this subject indicates that this culture exists especially among high-achieving students. If high-achieving students are approaching learning like that - they may be entrepreneurial leaders of the future - the calculated risks they are taking are not very high-risk at all. In fact, they are eradicating risk at a very early stage, which is problematic. If more dynamic aspects of learning were covered and included in the assessment, then the teaching and learning would be shaped accordingly. That might be a positive dimension. A book published in the US on this issue was entitled "How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning". That kind of strategic approach might be taken by some students.

Mr. Hammond might state how the different leaving certificate programmes and the transition year relate to each other and where entrepreneurship fits in, and he might allude to the transition year in general and the NCCA's plans to review it in relation to the senior cycle.

Mr. Hammond

I will focus on the question raised on the perceptions about the various programmes and how they have been viewed within the system since their introduction. The general perception of the leaving certificate vocational programme, LCVP, is that it was a curriculum intervention - a fairly limited curriculum intervention in the context of the scale of what schools are being asked to do in terms of changing what they have traditionally done. Therefore, it has been reasonably successful. Certainly, the kind of feedback from evaluations indicates that the link modules, one of which concerns enterprise education, have rooted very firmly in schools and have been quite successful in terms of their implementation.

The intervention has definitely not been successful - this is relevant to one of the points made by Senator Minihan - in encouraging cross-curricular links between the link modules and between the subjects students choose for their leaving certificate. The original thinking was that the kinds of ideas students would learn and think about within the link modules on enterprise and preparation for work would be connected back to the individual subjects. Evaluations of the LCVP have shown that that has not happened in an effective way.

The leaving certificate applied programme is an unqualified success within the education system, evidenced by the increasing number of schools which apply to take on the programme every year. The programme is extremely innovative in terms of what it has done with the curriculum and the kinds of assessment methods used. Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that it has been extremely successful in terms of retaining students in school who would otherwise have left or would have been identified as potential early school leavers.

From the perspective of intervention, an alternative track within senior cycle, the leaving certificate applied programme has proved extremely successful. Equally, however, the root of the problem lies within that. One of the participants today asked what options students take when proceeding from the junior certificate school programme into senior cycle. Invariably, the option is to enter the leaving certificate applied programme. One of the concerns we have, which is voiced within the senior cycle paper, is that an alternative track is developing within Irish education for the educationally disadvantaged predominantly. They are identified in primary school as students who would be suitable for the junior certificate school programme and their line of progression from that programme is invariably viewed as involving a move to the leaving certificate applied programme, with all that that implies in terms of progression and further education. The senior cycle paper voices a concern about the emergence of that track and that is why it raises the question of whether we should opt for a more unified curriculum, while not throwing out the best of what currently exists within senior cycle education.

Senator Minihan put his finger on it when he suggested that one of the difficulties with the transition year is that there is no single transition year programme. While this is viewed as a strength, it is a weakness in certain contexts. Not only does the transition year vary enormously from school to school but it can vary enormously from year to year within a school depending on the input and the staff involved. Nonetheless, it has been very successful as a programme. A question is raised in the senior cycle paper as to whether a more structured approach should be taken towards presenting a curriculum framework for the transition year programme.

A question has been raised frequently about whether formal qualifications of one kind or another should play a greater role within the transition year curriculum. Ms Looney referred to the emergence over the past year or so of the national framework of qualifications. That could be viewed very positively in terms of the links that could be established between programmes taken within transition year and the particular qualification.

I will briefly rise to the challenge of Deputy Stanton's question on how one develops a mindset for entrepreneurship. Many people have touched on different aspects of this and there is no doubt that one has to take a multi-faceted and multi-streamed approach. However, it has to do with changing the school culture and many of the areas we discussed this morning are instrumental in doing so. It is about changing school pedagogy, and many of the alternative programmes the committee has heard about this morning are instrumental in trying to change the basic pedagogy adopted within schools on a daily basis. The approach is about changing school assessment because when students come into contact with a broader range of assessment components, when they experience assessment in different ways and it is more directly connected to the learning that is taking place and to feedback on that learning, it has a huge impact in terms of their attitude and openness to learning.

Certification must be also broadened. This is one area within the senior cycle paper that has met with a positive response within the consultation process. We will look closely at the idea that we can come up with alternative forms of certification that will not dilute the meaningfulness of the leaving certificate as a qualification and the certificate itself, but which will retain the status of the leaving certificate as a programme and do justice to the extra curricular activities, the co-curricular activities and the experiences of students at senior cycle, particularly within programmes like the transition year that go well beyond what students are doing in leaving certificate subjects.

Entrepreneurship as a mindset is also concerned with interaction. The most important interaction within the school is between the individual learner and the teacher. Lynch and Lodge published a book last year which focused very significantly on how important is the nature of the exchanges between a teacher and student in terms of the student adopting dispositions or attitudes. I am sure this applies to enterprising and entrepreneurial attitudes, as it does to behaviour and other attitudes.

The openness of schools to links with outside bodies and communities is also a factor. The more outreach in which a school engages, the more students perceive the world to be their oyster. That is a major contributory factor. Changes to the curriculum are also important.

We have discussed at length the issue of part-time work. Perhaps one of the solutions to this and its impact within schools, is for the curriculum or the programmes focusing on working life to begin to capitalise on students' experiences of part-time work in classroom situations. Difficulties often arise because students are having very rich experience of working life and part-time work outside of the school which is not capitalised on within the curriculum or programmes in which students are engaged. These are a few ideas for further consideration.

Mr. Clifford

This is a wide area of debate and is difficult to measure. The Shannon Curriculum Development Centre has had a very interesting experience in working with an inter-generational project, which should be mentioned and it would be useful if Sheila O'Driscoll could elaborate on this. Aideen Cassidy would like to respond to the JCSP comment and perhaps Stephen McCarthy could comment on the cross-Border dimension, particularly the sharing of experiences by teachers North and South.

A number of speakers have referred to some of the crucial elements regarding school culture and climate. It is very important to emphasise this aspect. Our concern is with the nature of our relationships, which are at the core of our whole concept of education. These include the relationship we have with ourselves, with others, and the rest of society, be it social or physical. We can interpret much of education in the context of relationship building. In some situations it could happen that a student may feel that such relationships could be narrowed down, with the result that the world could be reduced to a narrow focus. For some students who engage in work, their horizons are broadened. The school should seek to always present a broad horizon and should not be seen to focus in a narrow way.

Huge numbers of students are prevented from even participating in the points system because it is so narrow. It calls on them to engage in a certain level of compliance or requires a degree of maturity on their part to be able to narrow their focus. For others, it means a denial of access. In view of this, a focus on the nature of relationships is very important. Perhaps Sheila O'Driscoll would elaborate on ways of engaging the elderly.

Ms O’Driscoll

We have some experience of inter-generational activity through the Shannon Curriculum Development Centre. We have been involved in a number of projects, both at a national and European level and even the names of the projects, such as Learning Together, Building Bridges and Solidarity Between the Generations, speak for themselves. In my school in Shannon, students and senior citizens have been involved in joint activities.

Our inter-generational work has been focused, not on an airy-fairy idea, but on building relationships through joint activities. One of the features of this initiative entailed local senior citizens attending the school and working with the students, who taught them IT skills and helped them to make their Christmas cards. In turn, the older people showed the students some of the traditional crafts, even things like looking after a pet. A range of activities was pursued involving learning together.

Linked in with this was the point made about the multi-cultural society as opposed to the uniform one to which we were accustomed. An interesting feature involved a Chinese student in the group; the Irish students were particularly taken by the student's evident respect for older people.

The inter-generational aspect and the idea of teacher inservice was referred to, an area in which we have all been involved. We consider it to be central to the mindset, to progressing matters and to looking definitely at how to deliver all of the initiatives and entrepreneurial skills to which reference has been made. This will allow for replacement of the cardboard keyboard by giving teachers real experience and helping them to look at the positive experience of all students.

Mr. McCarthy

With regard to the cross-Border aspect, one of the ironic developments between the education systems in the North and the South, is that the programmes in citizenship education, or politics at student certificate level, are quite close and practically mirror each other in their design. That is wonderful because for the first time it allows - it allowed me, for example - to bring teachers from the North and the South together through the education for reconciliation project and to actively train together in the area of citizenship education. Most of these teachers come from schools in the Border counties and the six northern counties. Interestingly, there is no difficulty in talking about Drumcree or Garvaghy Road, the police force, or flags and emblems. However, there is a denial south of the Border of the impact the Troubles have had on the Border region and how they have affected communities there through migration. The potential in the Border region for entrepreneurship is huge and this has already been demonstrated by a couple of individuals. People on both sides must see this. While we are trying to start with students and teachers, a process of reconciliation across the Border must be undertaken.

Ms Cassidy

Educational disadvantage is a different and wide debate. I will pre-empt my response to the questions posed by saying the points race and the nature of the education system in Ireland has a direct impact on the disadvantaged classroom. The more difficulties a student has, the more emphasis is placed on examinations and their value. Real education goes out the window and getting students through the examinations becomes a total grind. Students can end up with such serious reading and social skills problems at senior cycle that they cannot cope. This has a huge impact in classrooms in disadvantaged areas. Therefore, the programme is concentrated in schools where there is a concentration of educational disadvantage. This is linked directly to the schools completion programme. There is a link between the programme and schools that have a recognisable difficulty with students who might leave early.

As to what is being done to help teachers to become more encouraging, the issue of formative profiling through the school programme has been hugely successful in helping teachers to view the world through a more positive lens. However, as formative profiling is currently seen more as an add-on than an integrated part of the junior certificate, it does not have a high status as the entire emphasis is on the terminal examination, even in such a low stakes examination as the junior certificate. Huge issues remain in the area of educational disadvantage.

Chairman

I pondered how the Department would respond to the Green Paper. As much of the discussion centred on the issue of transition year, is the Department looking at a post-leaving certificate transition year and changing the focus on third level places?

Ms Margaret Kelly

We see the support the education system gives to entrepreneurship as being divided into five broad strands. The committee has already heard reference to the first of these strands, namely, mental attitude. Curricular change and the promotion of active learning built on a good foundation of literacy, numeracy, communications and IT is taking place at primary level and lower secondary level. This is fostering a sense of place in children and lets them know where they belong as individuals within the community, environment, economy and wider world. It is also fostering the ethical values of citizenship skills etc. This attitude of mind strand is impacting on all children at primary level and all of junior cycle and is being underpinned at junior and senior cycle, by degrees, by a more practical focus on assessment, project and portfolio work. This is increasing the relevance of what is learned as well as building on interpersonal skills, planning and teamwork. It brings multidisciplinary skills together.

The second broad strand is the basket of skills learned by pupils in school. One will see the broad thrust of the reforms has been towards multi-skilling and increasing vocational, technical, IT, science and language as the core skills needed for survival in a modern economy. This can be seen in the applied and vocational leaving certificate programmes where the emphasis is on mixing business and technical skills and marrying these with enterprise.

The third strand has a specific focus on enterprise. Some 20,000 senior cycle students are studying enterprise through the applied and vocational leaving certificate programmes where they engage in mini-company type activities.

The fourth strand relates to life-long learning. We must realise there is more to life than school and people must have the opportunity to re-enter the system throughout the life cycle. In recent years there has been an 18-fold increase in investment in adult literacy services - television has been used in this area. The White Paper on adult education and the task force on life-long learning have sought to widen the type of learners that can re-enter education. As recently as last year, there was a big expansion in part-time actions options in further education. Some 6,000 new places were created in part-time further education and these were primarily aimed at people who left school without an upper second level education. Part of the thrust of this is to widen access in third level, build industry and community links to education and realise that forms of education other than the traditional leaving certificate must be valued.

The final strand relates to enterprise and third level education. One can see an increased trend in workplace learning opportunities with the accelerated technician programme where six months of the learning takes place in the workplace. Each third level college has an industry links person, business innovation units, an increasing emphasis on industrial partnerships within the local area and graduate enterprise programmes where people with business skills can get additional training. This is driven by the expert group on future skills needs and the task force on the physical sciences.

The EU paper has understated the importance of a good general education as a core foundation and a second chance to access such skills. It has also understated the role of science, technology and engineering in supporting business and innovation development. These are two areas that could have received more coverage in the White Paper.

I cannot cover all the issues raised. The NCCA representatives mentioned a major discussion paper on senior cycle and its future direction. For learners and people in the education system, the traditional leaving certificate is recognised as the area most in need of change. Nevertheless, it is the traditional leaving certificate and the points race that parents most value for their children in getting them on in the wider world. That is a debate that still has to be reconciled. If one looks back on the consultations we had with the points commission, one sees they were driven by a dissatisfaction about the points race in the beginning but the outcome was that nobody knew what to put in its place. That debate is ongoing.

What we have is creeping change. The National Qualifications Authority of Ireland has produced a new framework of levels of qualification. Those levels of qualification will place awards from junior certificate and leaving certificate upwards across further and higher education and training into a national framework. It will be a matter of obligation on colleges to support access, transfer and progression for holders of those awards. Over time, this will bring together and place a value on different forms of education. Every award, be it in the education sector or the training sector, will carry its own value within that framework. That will free up part of the pressure that is currently coming from a points race dominated by the traditional leaving certificate.

On inservice and the cardboard keyboards, we have come a long way and are currently spending in excess of €20 million every year on inservice training for teachers. In the old days, the policy was that a curriculum was written and published. That has changed. Each new curriculum is now supported by comprehensive teacher guidelines. We have national curriculum support services and intensive inservice training. We have built up a network of more than 20 education centres that are open at night and at weekends in order that people can access them. Inservice training is much more interactive and less informational. It is followed up with visiting services to schools and work with the principal teacher and the whole school team backed up by IT supports, resource directories, development of networks and websites. I am not being complacent. I know we have a long way to go, but we have also come a long way from the cardboard keyboards.

Deputy Enright

Has Ms Looney any idea of the socio-economic background of the people who completed the survey? The response from teachers was 29.4%, and they are obviously people who have a professional background. Students and parents may come from various backgrounds. There could be an imbalance in the results. Some people may not have the same level of access to allow them to complete the survey.

Ms Looney

The on-line survey is on a continuum between a PR strategy and a data collection strategy. It is about raising the profile of the debate. There is a whole other strand of data collection going on as well. For example, today our colleagues are sitting down with a group of voluntary bodies brought together by the Combat Poverty Agency to engage with the issues raised in the survey. A much more comprehensive consultation process is going on underneath the survey. The survey is keeping the debate going and points to some very interesting trends. We will have a final report that will be broken down by teachers, parents and students.

We have done much to ensure that the on-line component does not mean the survey restricted to those who have home Internet access. For example, it has gone out to libraries, Youthreach centres and other groups. It is only one part of a much larger consultation process that should include these groups.

Chairman

Thank you. The committee will need to reflect on how best it might respond, particularly to the Green Paper. Perhaps the working group would make a recommendation on that. In addition to the material I mentioned, we should issue a report with some recommendations.

I thank members of the delegations for their input, which has been interesting and worthwhile for the committee and ties in with our previous meetings on the STEPS programme, for example.

The joint committee adjourned at 1.35 p.m. until 11.30 a.m. on Thursday, 8 May 2003.