Irish primary school pupils will have to sit standardised tests in numeracy and literacy from 2006 under new plans announced today by the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey.
Teachers will be required to test pupils in first class, in sixth class and at one other time - still to be decided.
Mr Dempsey said there was a need to have assessment data for the purposes of "decision-making, identifying progress and allocating resources".
He said currently there was no basis for analysing "how competency levels in numeracy and literacy are changing year on year and how pupils are performing in relation to standards set and achieved in other countries".
"There is little point," he claimed "in pumping half a billion euro into the system if we are not sure it is having the effect we want".
He said indicators were needed in key areas like the progress towards the targets set in the national anti-poverty strategy to tackle serious literacy difficulties.
Although parents will be granted access to their children's results, Mr Dempsey said there will be no league tables of school performance on the basis of these tests.
He said it was not the intention of the Department to use the results "to judge schools or teachers" or to "label individual pupils".
Mr Dempsey said he was mindful of the limitations of standardised testing if used incorrectly, he said, it can have "distorting effect" on education.
He said "high stakes tests" like the Leaving Cert can have a negative effect on the manner in which the curriculum is taught with teachers "teaching for the test".
Mr Dempsey said he was hopeful that teachers would not fall into this trap.
He said the tests would not be "the sole measure of assessment" but simply one way of gaining information that is needed to plan our education system.
But the plans were attacked by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO), which insisted they would not raise standards of education.
"National testing won't raise standards. It is time-consuming, expensive, wasteful of resources and it labels young children at seven and 11 years of age," INTO general secretary Mr John Carr said this morning.
"It is designed to ensure that every child in this country is tested and labelled, as a result of it creating concern and anxiety."
Mr Carr also said his organisation was not consulted by the Government over the move.
The Minister said: "Schools are already aware of the standardised test as one of a range of modes of assessment to promote pupil learning and such test are widely used by teachers.
"However, there are variations within and between schools regarding the regularity of standardised testing, the time of adminstration, the recording of test results, how the test scores are interpreted and how test results are used to inform pedagogical practice."
"The time has come to systematise their use and in so doing, to ensure a steady flow of data to schools and policy makers to faciltate their work in analysing what is,and what is not contributing to improvements in pupil learning."
"I have requested the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) to identify the key issues relating to implementing this requirement and to provide me with corresponding
