Junior Certificate reform is ‘not a cost saving exercise’, says Jan O’Sullivan

Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan has insisted that reform of the Junior Certificate system “is not a cost saving exercise”.

As 27,000 teachers prepare for another one-day strike tomorrow in opposition to the reforms, Ms O’Sullivan told the Dáil there was no expectation that the new proposals, where teachers assess 40 per cent of students’ work towards their final mark, would deliver savings.

“In fact the reform will cost an additional €9.3 million in 2015 and I have repeatedly stated that I will secure the resources which are necessary to support this reform into the future.”

Ms O’Sullivan was replying to a Sinn Féin Private Members’ motion on the controversy and rejected the call by the party’s education spokesman Jonathan O’Brien to postpone the implementation of the reform until the outstanding issues were resolved.

The Cork North Central TD said “we are at a stalemate and something needs to give. We can’t continue with the junior cycle reform with teachers taking strike days”.

He paid tribute to the compromises the Minister had made in reducing the level of assessment by teachers from 100 per cent to 40 per cent.

Problem

He said teachers did already engage in assessment of their students. But, “the issue becomes a problem . . . when you’re asking teachers to be judge and jury on the Junior Certificate”.

Mr O’Brien said “we’re asking teachers to implement the reform against a backdrop of diminishing resources and increasing student population and something has to give”.

But the Minister insisted the reforms would go ahead.

She said she would continue to seek agreement and had met the teaching unions just last week.

Teachers were a vital stakeholder she said.

“However, no one party can have a veto on progress and change in the system.”

She said attempting reform was not easy and there would always be opponents to such reforms, but under the present system the professional teacher judgment and experience was excluded from formal Junior Certificate assessment and this needed to change.

And she criticised the Opposition for the stance they were taking, against a strong body of evidence that supported the need for radical reform of the Junior Certificate system.