Results day comes a week before changes ratified

ALMOST 57,000 students receive their Junior Certificate results today — a week before planned changes are finalised on how future teenagers will be assessed.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is scheduled to ratify proposals that include a range of tests aimed at taking the focus off the final exams when it meets tomorrow week.

Education Minister Ruairí Quinn wants changes to begin as soon as possible and hopes they can be introduced for students who begin second-level education in a year’s time. He has already decided to limit the number of subjects students can take exams in in the Junior Certificate to eight, part of a wider effort to increase the focus of teachers and schools on developing children’s literacy and numeracy skills.

Most students sit nine or 10 exams but today’s results include 15 students who got As in a dozen higher-level exams. They are among 399 people with 10 or more higher-level As, one more than last year, while the numbers with seven or more As is up from 1,778 in 2010 to 1,860.

Although the number of subjects is to be reduced, research by the Economic and Social Research Institute for the national council suggests that curriculum overload is not a major factor in students disengaging during the three-year junior cycle.

Instead it points to difficulties around the transfer from primary school to second level and the focus on preparation for Junior Certificate exams that takes over classroom activities as early as first year.

Part of this pressure may be eased by the planned changes, which will include more continuous assessment of students with project and portfolio work, leaving the proportion of marks for the written exams in June as low as 50% for many subjects.

While most of those getting results at the country’s 730 second-level exams are teenagers, State Examinations Commission chairman Richard Langford said special congratulations is due to the 1,070 re-entrants to education. They entered for this year’s Junior Certificate through various educational support schemes such as the Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme and the Back to Education Initiative.

Their numbers have fallen from 1,267 in 2009 and 1,135 a year ago, but the overall numbers who sat the Junior Certificate are up to 56,930 from just over 56,000 in 2010. They include 27,678 female and 29,252 male students.

Teachers’ Union of Ireland deputy general secretary Annette Dolan said it is vital that those who have come this far in their education be enabled to continue at school. She urged that programmes which help students who might otherwise drop out after Junior Certificate to stay at school be insulated from further cutbacks.

“We again appeal to the Department of Education to fill the position of national co-ordinator of the Leaving Certificate Applied programme, which was not filled after a retirement. For a miniscule saving, the department is negatively impacting on the aspirations of 7,000 students in the programme at a time when there has been a worrying drop-off in the number of students completing the two-year course,” Ms Dolan said.