I thank the Chairman and members for their welcome. The purpose of this meeting is to explain the proposal for a State Examinations Commission.
I am using the provisions of section 54 of the Education Act 1998 to establish the State Examinations Commission. In accordance with the provisions of the legislation, I have laid copies of the proposed order before both Houses of the Oireachtas. As soon as each House passes a resolution approving the proposed order, I can make the order which will formally establish the commission.
The establishment of a State Examinations Commission will be a historic and significant event, not just in relation to how the State examinations are conducted, but also for the functioning of the Department of Education and Science. I am pleased to have this opportunity to set out for Oireachtas colleagues in this committee why we are doing this and what it will mean for the examinations and in a wider context for the education system.
The Government decision to establish a State Examinations Commission was taken by the previous Government in June 2001. I acknowledge the widespread support given at the time by all parties in the Oireachtas and by other stakeholders in the concept. The concept of moving responsibility for the operation of the examinations from the Department to another agency was under active consideration by the then Government in the mid-1980s. It lay dormant until the report by Seán Cromien on his review of the operations, systems and staffing needs of the Department of Education and Science, which gave new impetus to the concept and has led to this specific proposal that is before us today.
Since the Government decision in June 2001, my Department has been engaged in making the practical and detailed arrangements needed to devolve the task of operating examinations to a separate body. Ensuring continuity of a quality service has been an essential element of the planning exercise and I will return to that dimension later. Just after Christmas, I was pleased to announce that I would be bringing the draft order to the Houses shortly and that the Government had decided on the names of the commissioners designate.
The commission will consist of five members appointed by the Government on my nomination. Mr. Jimmy Farrelly, Ms Mary Bridget O'Hara, Mr. Martin Newell, Mr. Barry O'Brien and Ms Dympna Glendenning have all indicated that they are willing to accept appointment to the first commission. I am grateful to them for the practical support they are offering at the beginning of the process. The combination of their experience and their commitment to education means that the State Examinations Commission will start its life with a very strong board of commissioners.
The obvious first question to pose is: "Why have a separate State Examinations Commission?" The answer has two parts. One part lies in the perspective taken by Mr. Cromien in relation to the appropriateness of having such a large-scale operation located within the Department and its capacity to prejudice the Department's ability to become more focused on policy and planning work. There is a second, and to my mind, more significant driver of this change and that is to have in place the model of delivery that puts the operations of the examinations themselves on the soundest footing in the future.
The scale of the examinations operation is significant. The key point is that at the heart of the statistics are the future prospects of our young people. The leaving certificate examination, in particular, has become a key life event. No family in the country is unaware of its significance. Examination results have a high currency value as they are used to determine third level place allocation and employment prospects. As a consequence, the State examinations have effectively become a national institution. They are not owned by my Department or by any one group. The stakeholders are a broad coalition with students, parents and families at the centre, joined by teachers, school communities and all agencies, education institutions and employers that use the results.
Over the years it has been generally accepted that the integrity of the examinations, not only has been maintained but also has been seen to be maintained. Ensuring that public confidence in the fairness, quality and transparency of the system is maintained into the future is therefore of prime importance. This brings me to the first major principle that underpins the proposed establishment of the State Examinations Commission.
The Government is clear that the most appropriate type of body to be charged with the task of securing the integrity of the examination system and public confidence in it into the future is one headed by a board of commissioners appointed by the Government. This places the conduct of the state examinations function on the same plane as recruitment to the public service, the collection of taxes or the valuation of State property.
The second principle that I believe is important to put on the record is the view of the Government that, like the bodies to which I have referred, the commission should be a Civil Service body. The operation of the examination system is a fundamental public service and must remain a public service activity. A model of delivery based on privatisation would be totally inappropriate. This has happened in other jurisdictions, but I think it is inappropriate and it is not what we are about. I am using this opportunity to fully clarify the position and to ensure there is absolute clarity among the public about what we are doing.
Apart from public confidence in the integrity of the system, there is a high degree of consensus that the Department has operated the State examinations with a considerable degree of success over the years. Given the scale of the operation and the large team of people involved in it, including 4,500 examination superintendents and some 6,500 examiners, it is inevitable that problems can arise from time to time. These have been few and far between. The Department has worked hard in recent years to improve the systems and processes involved in the conduct of the examinations.
Since 1996, there have been some significant changes. Along with their results, candidates now receive a separate report that alerts them if any examination result has been formed without some essential part, such as an oral or practical component, being present. Through a sophisticated track and trace system that uses barcodes, examination material is tracked from schools and examiners to the Department and vice versa so that any irregularities or gaps can be readily detected. I invite the members of the committee to visit the operation and see for themselves how well it runs.
Empowering candidates through better information has been a key part of the quality agenda pursued by the Department. Publication of marking schemes and chief examiners' reports are a feature of the system but the sea-change occurred in 1998 through the mould-breaking decision to allow candidates view their marked scripts in the context of the appeals process. That move has placed the Irish examinations system to the forefront of international practice in rightly placing the individual candidate at the heart of the service.
A further key element in the suite of improvements made in recent years was the introduction of the appeals commissioners to whom an individual candidate has access after the completion of the appeals process. Appeals commissioners act like ombudsmen to ensure that candidates appealing their results are afforded due process.
Supporting these measures has been a consistent and incremental improvement in quality assurance measures in relation to the marking process. This has involved improvements concerning the induction and training of examiners and the supervision of the marking process by advising and monitoring examiners. The appeals process has been used as a further quality assurance check on the work of examiners generally and has led to instances where re-marking of the entire work of an examiner has been carried out.
The examination system the Department will hand over to the commission is robust and grounded on ensuring a quality service in a transparent manner. In the context of the transfer of responsibility to the new commission, it is vital that there is continuity in that agenda of quality assurance and transparency.
I now want to explain how, in the detailed planning for the transfer that has taken place since the Government decision, we have sought to ensure the continued successful operation of examinations. A chief executive officer will have overall executive responsibility for the work of the commission, assisted by a director of operations and a head of examinations and assessment. In relation to the administrative functions of the commission all the experienced staff serving in the Department's examinations branch will be assigned to the new commission on vesting day. They will be augmented by additional staff to deal with the corporate service activities, such as human resources and IT, that the Department previously provided but which the commission will now provide for itself on a dedicated basis.
To ensure a smooth hand-over in the critical areas of question paper and test instrument preparation leading on to the marking and results processes, the new commission will have a dedicated assessment division to which serving members of the Department's inspectorate, currently involved in the examination processes, will be seconded. In the new commission the officials concerned will work exclusively for the commission and will be charged with managing the delivery of its assessment functions to the highest standards. I acknowledge the constructive and positive approach taken by the relevant public service unions and staff interests in working with my Department to successfully conclude these crucial detailed arrangements.
To support the change agenda into the future the commission will have resources in its assessment division to pursue research into assessment methods and approaches and through its own dedicated IT function will be able to continue to harness IT to further improve customer service by building on such initiatives as web access to exam results.
To a large extent the scale of the examinations operation is the result of the work of the Department, in consultation with the NCCA and the partners in education, in developing post-primary curricula. There are a number of options available to young people in post-primary schools today. This increases the chance that each young person will pursue a course of education that suits his or her interests, aspirations and ability. A wide variety of subjects is available. Most of these subjects can be studied at two levels and some are available at three levels - foundation, ordinary and higher.
Diversity extends beyond individual subjects and several different programmes of education are available to our post-primary students. The present junior cycle curriculum, introduced in 1989, offers access to a single unified programme for students. Following the exams in 1992, the first junior certificates were awarded, replacing the intermediate certificate and day vocational or group certificate. Since then the junior certificate schools programme has become available to students who may have difficulty with the junior certificate in its original format.
Senior cycle pupils can opt to pursue a traditional academic leaving certificate programme. They also have the option of the leaving certificate vocational programme. While this has a strong academic component and allows participants to proceed directly to universities or institutes of technology, the link modules - enterprise education, preparation for work and work experience - introduce them to the world beyond school and academia.
The leaving certificate applied caters for students who are not well served by an academic approach to education. Successful participants in this programme are eligible to participate in many post-leaving certificate courses leading to further education and training awards. Those participants who enter the workplace directly on leaving school enter as young people whose education has prepared them for this step. All this, while contributing to the flexibility and inclusiveness of our education system, has increased the complexity of operating the exams.
When the commission is established, responsibility for the operation of the examinations will devolve to it. Responsibility for overall assessment policy will continue to reside with my Department, informed by the advice and recommendations of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. Such major policy issues as the future role and nature of the junior certificate examination and how the senior cycle should evolve will be, as heretofore, a matter for the Minister. To support policy development the recent changes in MAC and principal officer assignments in the Department include the creation of a new curriculum, assessment and qualifications policy section.
While discussion, analysis and debate continues on some of the more medium-term and major policy issues in relation to assessment, there are a number of issues concerning the examination system and how it impacts on young people that I will be asking the NCCA and the State Examinations Commission to examine in the immediate future.
Without prejudice to the debate on such issues as the balance of external and internal school based assessment, positive changes can be considered that can reduce the stress experienced by young people each year in the month of June in particular. This can be done by spreading out the existing assessment arrangements over the full school year. I will be requesting both the NCCA and the commission to look at how we might move to a situation where, for example, a candidate would submit essay work in English for examination much earlier in the examination year and thereby reduce the amount to be done in June. At junior certificate within the existing framework there are particular questions that need to be addressed about the burden on candidates that arises from the duration of some of the examinations and the need for examinations in more than one written paper in any one subject.
I turn now to the second dimension to the rationale for transferring the operation of the examinations from my Department to the new commission. I have referred to the report by Seán Cromien on his review of the operations, systems and staffing needs of the Department of Education and Science. Mr Cromien painted a picture of a Department that was drowning in detailed day-to-day work, severely limiting its capacity to take a long-term, strategic approach to its business. He cited a piece from an earlier report on the Department, undertaken by Deloitte & Touche, which I think is worth repeating. The report states:
In general the Department is involved in many details of the operation of the education system, which by their sheer number tend to absorb much of the Department's time and effort in reactive activity. The current workload is therefore skewed towards those operational activities, which, although critical to the ultimate delivery of education, defer attention from longer-term and strategic activity in the sector.
When Mr. Cromien undertook his review there was growing disquiet at all levels within the Department at the quality of the customer service it could deliver. This was despite the strong commitment by the majority of the staff to their customers.
Equally, there was, and is, a sense of frustration among customers of the Department, who frequently experience difficulty in their transactions with the Department. Considering that the principals of more than 4,000 schools are typical customers of my Department, it is easy to imagine the difficulties they experience when faced with delays in dealing with correspondence and other limitations on service due to the sheer volume of communication coming into my Department. Many of those customers will acknowledge that most individuals within the Department are making every effort to provide them with a good service. However, there is a limit to what can be achieved when some of the systems within which the Department operates predate the foundation of the State.
The situation that has arisen within my Department also causes me concern for another reason. Unless we address the underlying structural problems, the Department will increasingly lose capacity to engage in proactive forward planning and formulation of educational policy. The outline I have given of the development of second level programmes since 1989 illustrates the value of my Department as a co-ordinating centre for education. It would be disastrous for the future of Irish education to be left without such acentre.
Mr. Cromien recommended steps affecting most aspects of the business of my Department to counter the difficulties faced by the Department and its customers. At the core of his recommendations are the pressing needs to move away from detailed involvement in operational matters to allow a focus on policy development, forward planning and evaluation. This mirrors the broad theme of the earlier report by Deloitte & Touche and a general feeling within the Department itself. Acting on Mr. Cromien's recommendations is the only realistic way of enabling my Department to fulfil its role in driving the future of Irish education.
Following receipt of the report, a task force within my Department prepared a blueprint for the implementation of its recommendations. The Government approved the implementation of four measures in June 2001: the establishment of a State Examinations Commission; the establishment of the National Council for Special Education, as a body independent of the Department, to provide research, expert advice and undertake certain operation functions for students with disabilities; the establishment of a framework of regional offices; and the bringing forward of legislation to extend the remit of the Higher Education Authority.
I hope, with the support of the committee, that we can take the final steps towards the establishment of the State Examinations Commission. This will be the first of the four measures to be fully implemented. Throughout the course of this year, the other elements of the Government decision will be progressed. I will be moving to establish the National Council for Special Education on a statutory basis. This year will see the roll-out of our regional office network and I am also committed to bringing forward the necessary legislative measures to support the devolution of responsibility for the institute of technology sector to the HEA.
Work is also continuing on a series of steps to bring clarity and certainty to other aspects of the Department's business. An independent appeals mechanism dealing with staffing allocation at primary level has been put in place and at second level it is intended to make appeals to an independent body possible from the 2003-04 school year. An independent appeals system has also been established with regard to the application of the terms of the school transport scheme.
We are shaping a Department that will be capable of anticipating and meeting the needs of the educational sector of 21st century Ireland. We are doing this both by an internal restructuring of the Department and its processes and by external restructuring through the establishment of independent bodies to provide support services. The State Examinations Commission will be based in the existing examinations branch premises in Athlone, which has been specifically designed for the operation of the exams. Last year, I attended a function to mark the 25th anniversary of the relocation of the examinations branch to Athlone. The move of the branch from Dublin to Athlone was one of the very first Civil Service decentralisations. It successfully demonstrated that it was possible to carry out functions with a national application from outside Dublin.
The State Examinations Commission represents the evolution of examinations branch into the type of organisation that we will need as we move further into the 21st century. I am confident that this pioneering move of one of the largest operations of my Department into the remit of a separate body will be every bit as successful as the move to Athlone in 1977.
I apologise to the Chairman for going over my allotted time. I will have to make sure my officials get used to the speed at which I speak.