We need a full package of up-to-date information that allows parents to use their own judgment when assessing different schools and different educational options for their children, writes Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.

At the end of January, the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, formally announced that inspection reports carried out at our primary and secondary schools would be published. Big deal? Not really. We should see this for what it is - a small, long-overdue step that falls way short of the mark for many parents.

If you thought that Minister Hanafin's recent announcement was a whopping U-turn, you'd be right. Fianna Fáil has been to the forefront of the campaign against the release of information on our schools, even appealing directly to the courts to keep parents in the dark.

Lately, in moving to embrace the principle of information on schools, Minister Hanafin's "conversion" has been exceptionally half-hearted. Under her proposals, any school inspection reports undertaken since February 6th, 2006, will be made available to the public. This year, 300 primary and secondary schools will take part in a Whole School Evaluation (WSE). These will be put into the public domain - and rightly so.

But, put this number in context. There are 4,021 primary and secondary schools in the State. At this rate, it will take 13 years to complete a WSE at every school. The message to parents with school-going children is clear: don't hold your breath waiting for an evaluation of how your children's school is performing. By the time you see one of these reports, chances are your children will have moved on.

What happens if a school gets a less-than-glowing report in 2006? Should they really have to wait until 2019 for their second evaluation? Where is the incentive to change and reform if schools have the millstone of a poor report around their necks for more than a decade?

Of course, before any of these reports are made public they will have already been vetted by individual schools, which can make an application for the contents to be changed.

Therefore, even before looking at the glaring gaps in the information that is to be released under Minister Hanafin's plans, we can identify some major problems with her proposals. There is a far better way of giving parents access to real, up-to-date and valid information about the schools their children attend. Just don't expect to see it happen with this Government.

Under Fine Gael proposals developed by Olwyn Enright TD - proposals that triggered Minister Hanafin's belated response - all schools would produce an annual school report. This document, available directly from each school, would be updated every year, giving schools the flexibility to show when and where changes have been made.

Each annual school report would give parents the full picture regarding everything that takes place in their child's school, both in the classroom and outside it. Schools would detail their policies on bullying, special needs and discipline, showcase their extra-curricular achievements and activities and give full information regarding their facilities, subjects and exam performance.

Schools can even give the Department of Education a rap on the knuckles if appropriate, detailing deficiencies in their facilities or drawing attention to their 10-year wait for a new building.

We all know that different schools face different challenges on a day-to-day basis. It's not realistic simply to compare a school in an area of disadvantage with a more prosperous or fee-paying school on the basis of exam performance alone. What is vital, however, is the need to assess the progress that all young people make over the course of their education. This applies to every single school in the State, without exception.

For this reason, the Fine Gael proposals call for the baseline skills of all students entering second-level education to be assessed. In this way, their progress over the period of second-level education can be fairly evaluated, and Leaving Cert performance can be placed in its proper context.

Our proposals are not about league tables. What we want is the release of a full package of up-to-date information that will allow parents to use their own judgment when assessing different schools and different educational options for their children. What is abundantly clear is that Minister Hanafin simply doesn't trust parents to use this information wisely.

Parents choose schools for their children on the basis of a broad number of considerations. Exam results, whilst undoubtedly important, are just one part of the total equation.

In addition to the question of information for parents, we must urgently address the need for a new focus on educational quality in our schools. Today, 30 per cent of children from disadvantaged backgrounds have serious reading difficulties, three times the national average. Literacy standards in recent State exams have fallen. Educational disadvantage remains the Cinderella of the sector, whilst the Government is making no impact on tackling early school drop-out and 108,000 children attend primary school in classes of more than 30.

Everyone acknowledges that education is the bedrock of Ireland's success. If we truly believe this, then we must drive a real agenda for improvement in educational standards across all schools. To do this, we must have access to a far greater degree of information so that we can clearly see where certain initiatives are working or where new teaching methods are bearing fruit.

In order to improve things for the future, we need honestly to assess where we are right now. For example, I have recently highlighted the fact that we are now spending €500 million every year on Irish in the education system, and yet our young people leave school without any real command of the language.

If we devoted 1,500 hours of our children's education to geography, and they still could not locate France on a map of Europe, then we would have seen action from the Government years ago. By contrast, Minister Hanafin's head is firmly in the sand on this issue. Things could be much better, for Irish and for our young people learning it, but at present there is zero commitment to the necessary reform.

But, unfortunately, that is what we have come to expect from a Government in office for nine years who have run out of ideas and have grown tired and ineffectual in tackling the key challenges facing our education sector.