A new national convention, to begin in the coming school year, will be the “largest national conversation on education in the history of the State”, Minister for Education Helen McEntee has said.
It is more than 30 years since the last National Education Convention issued its report in 1994, which led to the landmark Education Act and an overhaul of the administrative structures of primary and second-level education.
Given the changes that have taken place since, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education said Ms McEntee believed it was timely that work should start on a new National Education Convention.
She has instructed officials to advance plans so it can be established “early in the next school year”.
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The results will inform Ms McEntee’s plan for the long-term future of the country’s education system, a spokeswoman said. “It is the minister’s intention that this will be a national conversation, with opportunities for all members of the public to contribute,” she said.
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An independent chair will lead the process, which will be tasked with examining the “needs of the teacher workforce into the future, how schools leadership can be supported to deliver for and support students, and how we can achieve an inclusive education system with the best outcomes in the world for all students, regardless of background or ability”.
Ms McEntee has told officials she wanted the convention to address the impact of technological advances and how we can best equip young people to “thrive and succeed in a rapidly changing world”.
These questions and others will be addressed by a number of groups, each with their own chair, representing children and young people, education stakeholders, including teachers and parents.
In addition, there will be local and regional engagement with communities across the country to hear views on the future of education.
The convention will seek to hear from employers to hear what skills they believe the next generation of workers will require and how we can ensure these skills are taught in schools. Civil society groups will be given the opportunity to feed into the work of the body.
“The minister believes that while academic results are an important aspect of education the education system must support the wider wellbeing and personal development of young people as well as place an equal value on a full range of skills and competencies,” a spokeswoman said.
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Catherine Byrne, an education campaigner and one of the instigators of a proposal to hold a Citizens’ Assembly on the future of education, welcomed the announcement.
“We are particularly struck by the intention to have a national conversation with opportunities for all members of the public to contribute,” said Ms Byrne, a formerly deputy general secretary of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation and founder of the Citizens’ Assembly on the Future of Education group.
She stressed the importance of listening to the voices of the disadvantaged and others on the margins who do not benefit enough from existing mainstream education system.
“We congratulate the minister and her department for creating this once-in-a-generation opportunity to consider basic questions about the purpose of education at a time of unprecedented change,” she said.
