Teachers have been reassured that they will not have to face British-style "league tables" for measuring school performance.
The Minister of State for Education, Mr Willie O'Dea, was applauded at the conference in Dublin yesterday when he criticised such measuring systems.
"They tell you nothing about what the pupils were like when they started in the school; they tell you nothing about the families they come from, or the communities they live in, or the resources available to a school."
To applause, he continued: "A school which takes children who might otherwise drop out at 15 and brings them through to a Leaving Certificate should be celebrated for its contribution to the future of this country. Their achievement is probably greater than where a school helps children from motivated and comfortable families to progress without difficulty to straight As."
He said measuring schools' effectiveness through "artificial competition is no way to proceed". As an alternative, the Government was putting forward the "co-operative model" of Whole School Evaluation (WSE). This would evaluate students' learning, school management and planning, as well as teachers' work.
WSE had been "specifically designed as a unique model, tailored to Irish circumstances and built upon affirming and developing schools rather than knocking them down", said Mr O'Dea. The early reports from the Department of Education's pilot scheme had been "extremely encouraging and demonstrate that such a collaborative model can work".
He conceded that many people fear that WSE "might involve a foot in the door for a more adversarial type of inspection". He said "nothing could be further from the truth".
The deep fears this issue causes were clear after Mr O'Dea left the podium. There was a procedural wrangle over whether an emergency motion censuring the union's executive for ignoring a decision of last year's congress "rejecting the introduction of WSE in our schools" could be taken. It was passed by a significant majority.
Mr O'Dea also said the Department of Education was to provide funding to selected schools to allow them to tackle early school leaving in a way suited to their individual needs.
He said the Government believed a major effort was needed to increase the number of pupils who completed a Leaving Cert.
Noting the increased funding for the less academic Leaving Cert Applied programme in recent years, Mr O'Dea said it was time to bring such courses "into the heart of what every school does".
"We want schools themselves to take charge of tackling early school-leaving and we want to give them the supports they need to make an impact. As a significant first step, we are developing a major pilot based on the principle of providing resources to schools to implement student retention initiatives identified by them."
Department sources said the initiative would be launched within the next month.
