Young male suicide and "epidemic" levels of young men's alienation from society had to be grappled with by the second- level school system, according to Mr Paul Rowe, chief executive of Educate Together.
As the major State instrument interacting with teenagers, the second-level system offers a unique opportunity to develop a co-ordinated approach to this phenomenon, he said.
This approach would need to focus on the shift from child-centred education at primary level to a "points-based" system based on regurgitating facts, Mr Rowe told a public meeting in Galway this week.
The meeting was held to discuss establishing a second-level multi-denominational school in the city.
Educate Together has founded 31 primary schools, and will have 35 throughout the State by the end of this year but has no second-level establishments.
Galway is one of three areas - along with Lucan, Co Dublin, and Ongar, Dublin 15 - where parents are now seeking to start an Educate Together secondary school for the first time.
Mr Rowe emphasised that Educate Together had not formulated a policy on second-level schools, because much of its work had been taken up over past years with founding primary schools.
Therefore, he was speaking in a personal capacity when he said that the points-based system needed to be addressed.
"We need to focus on the developmental needs of teenagers, rather than on a system geared to gain points to get into particular educational courses," he emphasised.
The current second-level system was based on a public method of examination inherited from the British empire, and in turn from the Chinese empire, he told the meeting.
A whole range of social skills were not given sufficient recognition, and this was anathema to the student-centred approach at the heart of the Educate Together philosophy, he said.
Also speaking at the meeting, Ms Terri Claffey, vice-principal of Galway's Educate Together National School, said that training for primary teachers was tuition- and education-based, where as training for second-level teaching was subject-based.
"We need creative thinkers in our society," she said. However, second-level students were not being afforded this opportunity.
