Rise in numbers taking oral Irish ‘highlights need to solve dispute’

A jump in the number of students doing an oral Irish test for the Junior Certificate highlights the need to resolve a teachers’ dispute over junior cycle assessment, a principals’ leader has claimed.

As revealed by the Irish Examiner yesterday, pupils at one-in-three schools are getting a Junior Cert Irish result today that includes marks for an oral test.

These tests are arranged locally by schools, rather than by the State Examinations Commission (SEC), despite unions’ strong opposition to the planned ending of independent external assessment in junior cycle reforms.

The SEC figures show that 14,172 students did the optional test — one- third more than last year, and the number of schools where they were carried out is up 28% in a year to 251. That is nearly 100 more than in 2012, and up from 54 schools in 2010 when less than 1,700 students did the oral test.

National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals director Clive Byrne said every child should have the chance to do the oral test. It is worth 40% of marks and he said it will encourage more young people to speak the language and study it at higher level.

“It’s really important that students have the ability to be assessed in their oral proficiency and the current trend shows that some students are being given that opportunity,” said Mr Byrne, who has spoken in favour of teachers assessing their own students for state exams. “But the possibility of every student doing it is being caught up in the current controversy over junior cycle reform. If a resolution could be found at that level, it might facilitate all students being able to participate in it,” he said.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) are on industrial action over the phased introduction of the Junior Cycle Student Award, a replacement of the Junior Certificate which would be based on school-based assessment.

It is unclear how many oral tests were done by teachers in the students’ own schools this year, or how many schools paid retired teachers or staff from other schools to do them.

The ASTI has a ban on members assessing their own students — or students in their school — in state certificate exams, including orals. It is also concerned about the use of other methods that do not involve teachers assessing and grading their own students.

“These ad hoc arrangements do not meet the assessment standards employed by the SEC which ensure quality control, consistency of standards, objectivity, transparency and public credibility,” a spokesman said.

The TUI allows members mark their own students for the oral tests, as long as it is voluntary, and is either done in class- time or teachers are paid. But the union said its position, which also requires that teachers are given appropriate training, was decided before the junior cycle reform plans emerged in 2012.

“‘TUI’s Junior Certificate oral Irish policy emerged in a different time under different circumstances. It pre-dates the framework for junior cycle, which proposes an entirely new dispensation,” a spokesperson said. He said the union is not aware of any breaches of its directive on Junior Certificate oral Irish and no members have been cautioned or sanctioned in relation to it. ASTI leaders are urging the union’s 17,000 members to vote this month to give them the power to call work stoppages and strikes in the dispute, saying it would strengthen their hands in discussions with the minister and her officials. In a letter to school stewards, general secretary Pat King and president Philip Irwin said the union favours curriculum change but is opposes changes that will undermine the consistency of standards and fairness in schools.