Rappers, rockers tune up for exams

Rap songs, didgeridoos, samba groups, and Eastern European instruments are turning the Leaving Certificate music into an Ireland’s Got Talent showcase.

A fortnight of practical tests begin next Monday for more than 10,000 Junior Certificate students, where it is worth 25% of marks, and for over 6,000 students who will get up to one third of overall marks available at Leaving Certificate music for their efforts.

However, chief examiner reports published by the State Examinations Commission (SEC) into last year’s exams give a flavour of what those conducting the assessments can expect.

While recorders, tin whistles, and guitars were most popular for those taking on the Junior Certificate, students were also assessed on performances on bass guitar, banjo, drums — including African drums, djembe, and bongo — bodhrán, euphonium, and cornet.

Those who opted for solo or group singing mostly picked chart music from recent years, with small numbers choosing rapping for their performance, and a samba band featured in one school.

There were equal levels of variety at Leaving Certificate, where a wide range of genres and instruments featured.

“Although the standard orchestral and traditional instruments were the most commonly presented, there were many examples of more unusual instruments such as the didgeridoo, ukulele, fife, a native Lithuanian instrument, and a pipe band. Candidates who performed in rock groups, in particular drummers, seemed very much at ease with performing,” the chief examiner wrote.

Meanwhile, up to 800,000 people can now get their final certificates of state exam results going back to 2006.

The SEC had withheld formal results for the Junior and Leaving Certificate since an Equality Tribunal case, which has been going through court appeals since and is not expected to be heard by the Supreme Court until 2015.

The tribunal found in 2006 that notes on two students’ 2001 Leaving Certificate results discriminated against them on grounds of disability by stating they had not been assessed in all elements of language subjects, for which they were exempted from spelling and grammar.

While provisional statements of results have issued as usual each August and anyone needing certified statements of results in the interim were provided on request, it has now been decided based on legal advice to make full certificates of results available.

The circuit and High Courts both rejected the Equality Tribunal finding and upheld the right of the Department of Education, which handed over the running of the exams to the SEC in 2003, for certificates to be annotated.

They will be sent automatically to 227,000 people who sat last year’s exams and the 2010 or 2011 Junior Certificate, and are available on request to more than 562,000 others who sat the exams since 2006.