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Change in education comes dripping slow
By Niall Murray
It is to be hoped that the dust never gets to settle on the junior cycle reforms unveiled by Ruairi Quinn on Thursday.
By going a step beyond proposals made to him almost a year ago on how to make the first three years of second level more about learning and less about an exam, the education minister has earned wide welcome but also ruffled union feathers.But with some clever political positioning, he has also removed many of the barriers they identified to the bones of the reforms, on which he has now placed the meat, albeit 11 months later.
The planned investment of €10m a year on professional development for teachers and principals, perhaps for as long as a decade, gives him some cover against calls that the reforms may not be resourced as well as needed. Teachers and school boards are right to be concerned that this must be done properly, to at least ensure fairness and as much uniformity as possible in the standard of assessment, if it is to be taken out of the centralised hands of the State Examinations Commission (SEC).
One of the highest-held strengths of an education system which has taken many knocks in recent years is the transparency and perceived fairness of the Junior and Leaving Certificates. That should be seen to continue even after the Junior Certificate moves entirely into the control of schools rather than outside anonymous exam markers.
Research carried out over recent years for the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), particularly by the ESRI has pointed to all that was wrong with the system. From second year in particular, they were being tailored academically to the so-called trial run for the Leaving Certificate.
It is by removing the perceived importance of the Junior Certificate that Mr Quinn and the NCCA who advised him hope to see our 14 and 15-year-olds turn back on to their school work. It should eventually become more about teamwork, independent research, and thus more feedback and recognition for their efforts.
The system will see them taking no more than eight, nine, or 10 subjects, or a combination of fewer main subjects with shorter courses devised by schools themselves or the NCCA to earn their certificate.
It will in future be awarded by their own schools and not the SEC, therefore removing one of the arguments raised by unions — particularly the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland — against students being marked by their own teachers for a State-certified exam. There is angst about pressure from parents to give the “right” grade to their sons and daughters, but the abolition of As, Bs, and Cs may help in the intended changing of the public mindset on academic performance in teenagers.
The argument of unions on this matter is weakened by the fact that hundreds of teachers are already marking their own students for the optional oral Irish test for Junior Certificate, as highlighted by the Irish Examiner in recent years.
Whether the workload increases complained of materialise remains to be seen. For example, could the time spent setting Christmas and summer exams in second year and early third year not be used instead on tests whose marks go towards the new Junior Certificate?
These and other questions should be considered in talks between unions, school managers, parents, and hopefully, representatives of students, over the coming months with Mr Quinn’s officials. But it will be his successor or successors who will need to continue this forward.
It’s another sign of how change can be all too slow in Irish education that the entire phasing-in will take until 2020. But this reform could yield enormous benefits for generations if it is done right.
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