Teachers angry over changes to Junior Cert paper

TEACHERS have expressed anger at the circulation of changes to the format of Junior Certificate Irish papers just eight months before students sit the exams and with no notice from the body which sets the tests.

The State Examinations Commission (SEC) sent copies of revised sample papers to the country’s 730 second-level schools last week, which included a change in one of the types of question from the existing format. In place of the usual question asking students to write a transcript of a conversation or interview, examiners are inserting a grammatical question which the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland said has not featured on the exam for many years.

While the union acknowledges that the topic is on the syllabus and may be examined, it is the timeframe in which they have heard about the changes which is causing concern among members.