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Minister Quinn addresses the ASTI Convention in Wexford

April 22, 2014

I would like to begin by thanking you for the invitation to address your Convention – my fourth opportunity to do so as Minister for Education and Skills.

In any given year, there are always many issues for discussion over Easter.

But this year, it is clear that one issue will dominate your convention.

Today, I want to take the opportunity offered by your invitation to discuss the introduction of the JCSA in some detail.

In the most recent edition of ASTIR, your president has written of how this Convention “is an opportunity to work collaboratively and collectively”.

It is in that spirit that I make my remarks today.

I have listened to your concerns over recent months.

And I will continue to do so.

I hope that you will listen to mine today.

But first, I want to touch briefly on some of our other reforms, which provide the context for the Junior Cycle changes.

The current reforms can be summarised under three themes:

• Supporting inclusion and diversity;
• Improving quality and accountability; and
• Creating opportunities – essentially this is about reshaping further and higher education, to better provide people with pathways to work.

Supporting Inclusion and Diversity

To begin with today, I would like to briefly outline some of our work to support inclusion and diversity.

In Ireland, DEIS is our principal mechanism for systematically promoting greater equity within our school system.

But there is more work to be done at second-level, to ensure that DEIS achieves the same outcomes we are seeing in DEIS primary schools.

Next month, I will host a conference in Marino Institute of Education about DEIS.

We will bring together teachers and other school leaders from disadvantaged schools;

Alongside parents, academics and other experts in educational disadvantage.

To explore what we have learned from almost 10 years of DEIS.

And more importantly, to begin to figure out where we need to go next.

Poverty is one of the primary differentiators between our children.

But the rich diversity of our children stretches way beyond the opportunities they are given at the start of their young lives.

Diversity in Ireland

Our children are as diverse as our society.

The Growing up in Ireland study has suggested that 25% of Irish children have special educational needs.

In other words, one quarter of all children in our schools have some restriction on their capacity to participate in and benefit from education.

Diversity is shown in other statistics.

According to the last Census, 10% of children in this country who are 14 or younger, were born outside Ireland.

The Census data also show us that just over 12,000 Irish Travellers aged 14 or under were recorded as resident in Ireland.

Another statistic from the same census is equally illuminating – the fastest growing group of adults in our society are people who profess to having no religion.

The 1981 census recorded 39,000 people as having no religion.

By 2011, that number had risen to almost 260,000 people – the second largest group in the country.

Poverty, immigration, differences in capacity.

Domestic dysfunction, embedded educational disadvantage, cultural changes in our nation.

All of these are challenges to the education you strive to provide each day.

And challenges to how we as a nation imagine our schools can and should operate.

By focussing on supporting inclusion and diversity in our schools, I hope that we can tackle the manmade limitations we have imposed upon our children.

Parents’ and Learners’ Charter

No discussion of inclusion and diversity in our schools would be complete without addressing the growing role of parents in our school communities.

Our constitution recognises the role of the family as “the primary and natural educator of the child”.

The Education Act of 1998 sought to put the involvement of parents at the heart of our education system.

And this has been realised in many of our schools.

Parents’ Associations have flourished across the country.

And the two National Parents’ Councils now play a meaningful role in the development of education policies.

But in truth, we have not done enough to underpin the involvement of parents in all aspects of education.

In health and other sectors, we have seen the development of charters in recent years.

These charters set out what those in receipt of services can expect, and how those delivering the services account to the public for what they are providing.

This year, I will publish revised legislation to create a Parents and Learners Charter for the first time – putting the involvement of parents and learners at the heart of how our schools operate.

The charter will be underpinned by a revised section 28 of the Education Act.

The charter will be designed to foster a culture of better engagement and communication by schools with parents and students.

Ultimately, this should reduce the need for invoking the complaints and grievances procedures.

But more importantly, it will help us see a change in culture.

Teachers, parents and learners – all as equal partners in the operation of our schools.

Equal partners working to set aside the differences which separate our children from each other.

Section 37

In discussing the need to support inclusion and diversity in our schools, I am conscious that this idea must apply to teachers as well as to students.

In that spirit, it is essential that we amend the Employment Equality Act, to deal with the existing Section 37.

Over the last fortnight, the Seanad has discussed the committee stage of a bill tabled by my colleague Ivana Bacik.

At last, after 17 years of delays, we are making progress on this vital piece of legislation.

I believe that this amendment will go a long way to removing the climate of fear faced by many of our LGBT teachers.

It will allow them to be open about who they are and who they love, without fearing the implications this may have on their jobs or their prospect of getting a job.

Working with the Minister for Justice and Equality, I am determined to resolve this legislation conclusively, before another year has passed.

Improving Quality and Accountability

As I mentioned at the outset, the major theme which I wish to focus on in my remarks today, is the idea of improving quality and accountability in our schools.

At other conferences this week, I will be setting out in much greater detail the various elements of our approach to improving quality and accountability.

There are a number of reforms involved: from initial teacher education, to the work of the teaching council, and from the transitions faced by senior cycle students to school self-evaluation, and improvements to school inspections.

However, acknowledging that JCSA is the largest current issue for your members, that will be the focus of the remainder of my remarks today.

Mark Patrick Hederman, the former headmaster of Glenstal Abbey once wrote of our education system, that:

“Imagination is what we should be cherishing, encouraging, cultivating. Instead of which we are systematically deleting it from the desktop of every child who wants to get enough points…to enter our third level institutes.”

He and I disagree on many things.

But on this, he has a point that few of us would dispute.

Developing and cherishing each child’s imagination through play based learning is central to early childhood education.

But what of the other levels?

At primary level, there has been a transformation over the past few decades.

Instead of being fearful about attending school, children now want to go.

Right throughout primary schools, we see children gather in small groups.

Exploring, playing, arguing, imagining.

Our primary school children are clearly being educated.

And the education they are receiving is filled with joy and wonderment.

In part, that is because the abolition of the primary certificate freed up teaching and learning.

It’s a different story at post-primary.

The most significant body of research we have on the lived experiences of post-primary students is the longitudinal study carried out by the ESRI.

Sadly, this research shows us, to quote Emer Smyth and Frances Ruane, “the current junior cycle is not providing an engaging and challenging experience for young people. Their learning is often well below its potential.”

This research tells us that many students experience fear and trepidation during their first year of post-primary education.

This perhaps, will always remain the case, as children move from ‘small school’ to ‘big school’.

Though it is a transition we could surely do more to ease.

More worryingly, the research tells us that during second year, many students – too many students – disengage from their education.

By this point, the play and imagination of primary school has been utterly disrupted by the backwash effect of the Junior Cert.

From that point, many young people will never fully re-engage with education.

They have already entered a departure lounge from education.

And some drop out as soon as they can after or even before the Junior Cert.

Moving away from centralised state certification at the end of junior cycle will certainly benefit those students.

But it will also benefit all others.

The learning approaches which post-primary students best engage with, are those which capitalise upon their natural creativity and imagination.

Participating in discussion and debate, testing themselves against those around them – these are approaches which capture the interest and imagination of our young people.

But for you, our teachers, there is little space for such approaches by the time students reach third year.

Practising past papers, learning to recite prepared essays, a narrowing of the curriculum to those areas likely to be examined.

These are the features of preparing for the Junior Certificate.

And by extension, must become features of your classrooms.

By the end of this process, Mark Patrick Hederman’s quote once again comes to mind – is this the manner in which we systematically delete imagination from the desktop of every child?

And to what end?

There are some who argue that the Junior Cert is an essential dry-run for the high-stakes Leaving Cert.

To that argument, there can only be two responses.

Firstly the Junior Cert serves such a purpose poorly.

The ESRI has found, and I quote “students report increasing demands between junior and senior cycles, with schoolwork becoming harder and more investment in homework required.

As a result, students become less confident about their capacity to cope with schoolwork and less positive about school in general.”

Again, I must stress that this ESRI study is the most significant evidence of the experiences of post-primary students available.

We have a responsibility to pay attention to that evidence.

These findings clearly show that students do not believe the Junior Cert is preparing them to study at Senior Cycle.

But even if the Junior Cert did serve this purpose as a dry-run, as some teachers and parents believe it should, would it really be worth the price?

Is it really acceptable to say that memorisation and rote learning, should be allowed dominate all other learning in post-primary schools?

Clearly, the answer is no.

As teachers, you are more ambitious than that for the young people you teach.

You want them to develop as people, as citizens.

Not simply develop the wrong skills for the wrong time in this globalised world we now inhabit.

I have heard from many teachers, that innovations they have introduced in their classrooms must be shelved in third year, to instead return to the handbook on exam preparation.

The introduction of the JCSA is about empowering teachers and students.

The principle underpinning these reforms is an idea of the relationship between teachers and students – an idea that teachers should be free to gauge the potential of their students, and help them to develop.

Not an idea that the role of teachers is simply to delete imagination from the desktops of our young people.

The JCSA forms one significant block in an array of policies designed to liberate our schools from a 19th century view of schooling, achievement and teaching:

We have acknowledged that the quality of teaching is key to quality outcomes for students, and have extended the H.Dip. to a two year teaching qualification.

The Teaching Council is being empowered through legislation to become a regulating body to maintain teacher standards and secure and maintain a strong profession.

Schools and teachers are being encouraged and supported, to reflect on the education you provide, to own it yourselves and to evaluate it as professionals.

JCSA will further empower teachers to lead and direct teaching and learning in your schools.

All of these ideas are interconnected, and reveal our approach to giving greater autonomy to our schools and to the profession.

Some of your members have chosen to criticise our reforms by pointing to the different direction being pursued by my counterpart in England and Wales.

I profoundly disagree with the policy direction being pursued across the water.

As I have said elsewhere previously, in the US and parts of the UK, we have seen the introduction of national testing, not only as a measure of student performance, but also as means to punish individuals and schools.

US academic Diane Ravitch has argued, and I quote:

“the goal of accountability should be to support and improve schools, not the heedless destruction of careers, reputations, communities and institutions”.

I make no apology for agreeing with that view of school accountability, and not that of my English counterpart.

The Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore and many others – countries who are achieving many of the standards we aspire to – these countries are already transitioning away from any state certification at the end of junior cycle.

Finland, until recently the poster child of the education world, utterly eschews any examinations until the point of matriculation.

We are almost unique in retaining a high-stakes terminal exam at the end of junior cycle.

And we know it doesn’t work.

That, plainly speaking, is why I made the decision to introduce the JCSA.

There is one other argument against the JCSA which I must address today – the idea that you would become judges rather than advocates for your students.

Your concern for the welfare of your students is a welcome feature of Irish education.

But just think about your choice of words – judges and advocates – for a moment.

The language of court trials is indicative of the impact that this state examination is having on our young people.

Teachers identify strongly with their students and regard “judging” them as a betrayal of trust.

Better, you say, that students should be “judged” by an external agency indifferent to their individual welfare.

An agency capable of sorting them properly into the queues for the Leaving Cert, which in turn will sort them into queues for Higher Education.

This idea of lower second level schooling needs to be challenged, and the new JCSA seeks to do so.

We need to move away from the sorting and judging of 15 year olds to a system which provides them with feedback on what and how they learn.

The current system narrows learning experiences, it narrows choice and it narrows skills sets.

Ultimately, it narrows life choices.

No parent wants this for their child.

Furthermore, it is unnecessary at this point in a student’s life.

To be clear, reform of Junior Cycle is ultimately a transition from examination to assessment.

It requires a move from judging students to providing them with structured feedback on their learning.

This will help them make more informed choices about what to study and at what level in senior cycle.

And what skills do we wish our young people to develop?

Capacity to present an oral argument, much prized in life?

The current junior certificate is blind to it.

Ability to function as a team member in solving complex problems?

Not easy to assess and given the margin of error, impossible to “judge”.

Capacity of a student to develop over time, learn and create something new?

No two or three hour exam can measure this with any degree of accuracy.

The system that people are defending is incapable of assessing these key skills, and if they cannot be assessed, they have no business in a classroom focused on the final exam.

The JCSA is intended to disrupt this cycle.

It relies on the strength and capacity of professionals.

And it starts by freeing them.

The JCSA will free you from collaborating in the preparation of 15 year olds for narrow judgment on restrictive criteria.

You are invited to really fulfil the role of guider and developer.

You are being empowered to sacrifice narrow precision for broad based, deep learning.

You are required to participate in a project that has at its heart a celebration of real achievement.

This is true advocacy.

JCSA is the most significant item on your agenda at this Convention.

But these issues are not new.

A century ago, Padraig Pearse wrote the Murder Machine.

In it, he wrote, and I quote:

“I would urge that the Irish school system of the future should give freedom –
freedom to the individual school,
freedom to the individual teacher,
freedom as far as may be to the individual pupil.
Without freedom there can be no right growth,
and education is properly the fostering of the right growth of personality”.
There have been many calls since to give schools and teachers that freedom.

Almost 25 years ago, the Junior Cert replaced the Inter Cert and the Group Cert.

Acclaimed originally as a more flexible entity than its predecessors, it was hoped it would be accompanied by new modes of assessment.

But the opportunity was lost.

A generation later, the NCCA published “towards a framework for junior cycle”.

That document made a compelling argument for change, building upon the ESRI research I referred to earlier.

It is worth noting – that that NCCA document, which your union now states was welcome – was presented to me with an accompanying objection from the ASTI.

So it is not accurate to suggest that ASTI would have supported the proposals published by the NCCA.

I gave serious consideration to the NCCA proposals – for over a year.

But ultimately, I came to believe that we risked repeating the error we made a generation ago.

Reform that does not fundamentally alter the assessment at the end of Junior Cycle cannot deliver meaningful change.

In making my decision, I looked again to the evidence provided by the ESRI, and consulted with many experts.

I was convinced that the quality of our education system would not ultimately change unless the high stakes exam was replaced.

Since I made that decision, time was lost as a result of your consideration of the Haddington Road Agreement.

That was understandable, but in retrospect I think that delays in sitting around a table to discuss JCSA were unfortunate.

But there is time.

This is a long project.

Almost a decade before full implementation.

And the first assessment event in the subject of English is almost two years away.

I encourage you to take the chance to put your mark on this significant change.

I am providing every opportunity I can for this to happen

In January of this year, I established a National Working Group to explore issues of concern to the various education partners.

The views of stakeholders have already resulted in changes to the timing of the introduction of these reforms – giving schools more time to prepare.

Additional CPD has been sanctioned for subject teachers and school leaders, while whole school days are being provided for planning these changes at school level.

A sub-group is considering in detail the issue of quality assurance and support for teacher assessment.

As part of its remit it is addressing external supports for moderation to reassure and support teacher assessment, and to help to ensure standards.

I trust you as our teachers to act professionally and assess your own students without fear or favour to anybody.

Teachers already do that in further and higher education where the stakes are much greater.

So why this fear of change in what is essentially a low stakes exam?

It begs the question: does your union have less faith in the professional capacity of you as teachers, than I do?

It would be dishonest of me to pretend that your union has been fully engaged in the National Working Group.

All other education partners – parents, management bodies and school leaders – have made written submissions to the sub-group, which we are considering, and continuing to discuss.

Regrettably, neither ASTI nor TUI have made any such proposals so far.

Your union has refused to provide any written views on ICT, resources, supports for moderation, or other matters.

I believe we can make progress by working together.

I hope that your union will now engage more fully.

Given the significance of JCSA, I have only had the opportunity to touch upon some of the variety of other issues which are of concern to your members.

I briefly referred to some of the reforms which underpin the idea of supporting inclusion and diversity in our schools.

And I have tried to clearly outline my reasons for the necessity of introducing JCSA.

Before I conclude, I also want to underline our commitment to enhancing the infrastructure which underpins these developments.

We will spend almost €550 million on infrastructure this year, continuing the five-year building programme.

Round 1 of the Summer Works Scheme has seen funding made available to 386 schools to keep them safe and warm.

And round 2 of that scheme will be announced next week.

The last batch of post-primary schools will receive a free connection to high-speed broadband by September.

There are many, many other issues which I would have liked to address today.

The development of new models of middle management in schools deserves further consideration.

You have concerns about multiple pay scales, about the future funding of our schools, about investment in technology.

I look forward to engaging with your leadership on these, and many other issues over the coming weeks and months.

Thank you once again for your invitation to be here with you today.