Leaving Cert reforms may face axe over costs

PLANS for major reform of the Leaving Certificate may be shelved as expert advice to Education Minister Mary Hanafin suggests the extra teachers alone would cost €100 million a year.

Expert advice, seen by the Irish Examiner, and sent to the minister in recent weeks, spells out the true cost of introducing a scheme of continuous assessment over a three-year senior cycle.

The experts suggest:

* The extra preparation work would need up to 1,900 more teachers.

* 20% more assessment work would be required, which could add €10m to the annual running costs of the State Examinations Commission.

* A possible one-off cost of €50m to provide teachers with laptop computers.

Ms Hanafin has already described the scheme of continuous assessment over a three-year senior cycle, proposed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), as the “Rolls-Royce option”.

She said the increase in external corrections could be very expensive. However, these latest costings from the NCCA will cast serious doubt on the prospects of continuous assessment being introduced as proposed.

The NCCA, a statutory body set up to advise the minister, says the country’s 746 second-level schools have an average of about 450 students each, but extra staff requirements would add about €100,000 to the wages bill of a 350-student school and up to €220,000 for a school with 850 students. A 7.5% increase on this year’s second-level teacher salary bill of around €1.36 billion would cost an extra €102m.

Despite comments about the cost of expansive reforms, a spokesperson for Ms Hanafin said she is considering the 100-page document before any decision is made where to go next.

The NCCA wants a Certificate of Senior Cycle Education involving a mix of short courses, transition units and full subjects across a three-year programme.

The NCCA advice sets out detailed proposals for moving towards the introduction of new study programmes in schools by September 2010, leading to the availability of the Certificate of Senior Cycle Education in June 2011.

The consultation process on senior cycle reform has found strong support from students, teachers and parents for overhauling the Leaving Certificate.