Teachers will take their Junior Cert campaign to parents

Parents are to be targeted in a campaign to explain teacher’s educational concerns about Ruairi Quinn’s plans to replace the Junior Certificate with a new system of school-based assessment.

As a number of motions were passed opposing his proposal that they mark their own students for the new Junior Cycle Student Award (JCSA), delegates at the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) spoke of the need to get their message to parents.

The first changes will affect students starting second-level next September, who Mr Quinn wants teachers to assess on course work for the first time in summer 2016, although the final exam a year later would be corrected for now by the State Examinations Commission (SEC). But ASTI and Teachers’ Union of Ireland members are refusing to do any assessment for the JCSA, but more immediately to do any training or planning for the new system.