Fears about the Whole School Evaluation system being "just a hair's breath removed from league tables" were aired at the ASTI conference in Dublin last weekend. "We don't want this competition notion between one school and another," one delegate warned.

However Dr Dymphna Devine, a sociology lecturer at NUI Dublin's Education Department, allayed fears and urged delegates to embrace the concept of evaluation, explaining that the focus has shifted from results or products attained through education to a focus on "the process of learning".

She told delegates that "the notion of partnership within education has become increasingly central . . . We need to broaden our conception of evaluation."

"Teachers have got to take hold of the process themselves," she said. "They have to feel that they have a sense of ownership, that they are not under attack." She was talking to delegates attending a workshop on evaluation in education at the annual ASTI education conference last weekend.

Education, she said, "is moving away from the notion of product". Teachers, parents and students "all have a role to play within the system". EVALUATION "is a way of empowering teachers within the system . . . the implications for teachers is that they must assert their professionalism as teachers. They can choose to react against change but they should have the confidence in themselves to assert their voice in the system."

Also, Maura Clancy, assistant chief inspector in the Department of Education and Science, told those at the ASTI workshop that "there has been no attempt to grade" the 35 schools which have taken part in the Whole School Evaluation pilot programme "in any way. Each report stands on its own." She said the recommendations were negotiated with the school and the pilot report on the evaluation is currently with the printers.

Devine pointed out that "to empower teachers is not to deny the voice of others". The League Table debate, she pointed out, "doesn't conceptualise or allow for concepts of education. It emphasises a product focus." She encouraged teachers to embrace the Whole School Evaluation idea and not to fear it.

One delegate asked "where teachers stand with regard to schools being enabled to determine their own evaluation?" Devine said "change has to come from inside your own gut, it has to come from within".

One delegate worried that comparisons between one school and another would not be helpful. "We cannot go down the road where you compare schools with schools."

In the next couple of years there will be "a radical change in teacher training", according to Dr Conor Galvin, another member of NUI Dublin's Education Department, who conducted a workshop on innovation and teacher education at the conference.

"I worry about these claims that there are bad teachers out there," he said. "If there's any doubt out there about teacher professionalism - as an indicator look at the number of people who despite all the problems (time, travel and cost) find a way of doing diplomas and master's. The number is rocketing."