Primary pupils should be tested for literacy three times in their school careers, the general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, Senator Joe O'Toole, has proposed.
The tests should be carried out by teachers and the results collated at national level - but the performance of individual schools should not be publicised, he said.
Ironically, Mr O'Toole chose to make his proposal in the annual Issues In Education, published by the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland. The ASTI is opposed to the concept of teachers testing their own pupils. The book was launched at the weekend by the ASTI president, Ms Bernadine O'Sullivan.
In an article on literacy, Mr O'Toole says children should be tested at the age of six, with another test before the age of nine and a final test before they leave primary school.
Where pupils were identified as having reading difficulties, "a professional team comprising the class teacher, the remedial teacher, and if necessary an educational psychologist, should devise a programme for the pupil and advise the parent," he writes.
Testing is also suggested in the report by Dr Mark Morgan, lecturer in psychology and education at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, who says the issue for debate is whether the test should be formal like the 11-plus or the old primary certificate or whether it should be a specific assessment of literacy. The guest editor of the publication, broadcaster Olivia O'Leary, writes in her introduction that "it seems extraordinary to me that the first formal assessment an Irish schoolchild meets is halfway through post-primary education".