Education and learning seem to have gained exceptional importance within our society over the last three decades, and educational changes seem to have rarely escaped media attention, political agendas and economic reforms. As a result the Irish education system has been faced with many new demands and has undergone a proliferation of changes over the last 30 years. The importance and relevance of education is unquestionable, and the knock-on effects which education impinges on society and industry are nowhere clearer or more evident than in Ireland. Much of the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’ can be attributed to the large amounts of funding spent on teaching and training of our unemployed during the ‘80’s, through government funding and European Social Fund grants from the EU (Benner & Lenzen, 1995). Within this dissertation the author will endeavour to ascertain whether the junior cycle of post-primary education is conducive to the primary cycle. The author will explore to what degree the Junior Certificate maintain and develop upon the educational aims and objectives practised in the primary curriculum. The author will examine the evident constraints that are being placed on both teachers and students at the junior certificate level, which in turn are inhibiting them from developing upon the child-centred approach used in the primary schools. These constraints include, pressure from parents in regards to success in examinations, pressures placed on the system by terminal examinations and summative assessment, lack of resources, and over-crowding of syllabi.