Richard Bruton
Ceist:121 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Education and Science the plans, if any, he has to introduce literacy and numeracy assessments and targets for all pupils transferring from primary to post primary schools. [3717/98]
Written Answers. - Educational Standards.
The present approach to assessment at the age of transfer is that the schools devise and administer their own tests either before entry to second level schools or at the beginning of the school year following transfer.
The setting of national standards in literacy and numeracy which all pupils would have to attain would inevitably lead to some children not transferring to second level schools at the appropriate age. This would have obvious undesirable consequences for the pupils concerned and for their families and would inevitably put an unacceptable degree of pressure on the weaker pupils. Any approach to target-setting would have to take the needs and abilities of weaker pupils into consideration. As a result, the targets set might have to be so low as to allow the possibility that they would be attained by all pupils. This type of minimum competency assessment and target-setting would, in the long-term, be more likely to lower overall standards than to raise them.
Setting of minimum targets in literacy and numeracy might also lead to a narrowing of the primary school curriculum and a neglect of areas in which minimum targets are not applicable and which are not easily assessed like the arts, physical education, social, scientific and environmental education and social, personal and health education. This would not be a desirable development.