Taoiseach Enda Kenny said he regretted the decision by teachers to close secondary schools next Tuesday in protest over junior cycle reform.

“The only ones who suffer from a strike in circumstances like this are the pupils and this is about them,’’ he said.

For over 30 years, he added, there had been agreement on the need to reform the first three years of second-level education.

“Undoubtedly, the current Junior Certificate has its strengths, but it cannot allow for assessment of skills, such as teamwork, communications or creativity, which are all important in today’s world.’’

Short courses

Mr Kenny said the new Junior Cert would allow students to study short courses in a range of areas that were relevant to their future.

It was an issue about devolution of responsibility to schools which had generally been accepted.

Some of the short courses, he added, would include the Chinese language and culture and coding, which would be of increasing importance in the future.

The Taoiseach was replying in the Dáil to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who said he understood where teachers were coming from in their concerns, because there was a major change in assessment impacting on the student-teacher relationship.

Mr Martin said the greatest aspect of the State examinations system, at both Junior Cert and Leaving Cert, was its absolute objectivity and transparency.

He said he agreed with Fintan O'Toole who had written in The Irish Times that it was as close to being incorruptible as anything got in Ireland.

“Changing such a system, even at Junior Certificate level, merits the most careful of consideration,’’ he added.

Mr Martin said it was also fair to put on the record that there had been, over the past 10 years, significant reforms at Junior and Leaving Cert levels.

The problem, he said, was that former minister for education Ruairí Quinn had caused a lot of bad feeling when he ignored the recommendations of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.

Mr Quinn had announced the new model unilaterally without consultation and would not engage with the trade unions, creating doubt and bad feeling, he added.

Engage with unions

Mr Martin said Minister Jan O’Sullivan should engage in talks with the unions without condition, which could prevent the strike going ahead.

Mr Kenny said priority Junior Certificate changes in areas such as creativity, teamwork and problem solving could not be assessed by written examination.

The plan was for a reduction, from 100 per cent to 40 per cent, in the marks to be awarded for portfolio work, oral skills, project work and ways of assessing that were much broader than written examinations.

He added that in Scotland, Finland, Australia and New Zealand, all countries with high-performing school systems, state examinations at the end of the junior cycle had been either abolished completely or replaced with a combination of examinations and coursework assessed within the school.