A year on, vastly different education reforms are agreed

Some six years after the idea of junior cycle reform was floated, there has finally been an agreement, writes Education Correspondent Niall Murray

There is a gaping distance between whatever level of reform teachers are likely to vote on in September and what was being proposed a year ago. After more than a year of industrial action, which has included two strike days, 27,000 members of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (Asti) and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) learned this week that their leaders have come up with a deal that they and Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan all endorse.

In May 2014, the then education minister, Ruairi Quinn, was resolu te that teachers must mark their own students on all aspects of assessment for what was to be an entirely school- issued qualification. In the last week of May, recognising that the teacher unions were equally entrenched in their stance on the junior cycle issue, he announced plans for talks that never happened before Ms O’Sullivan replaced him in July.