‘Change due’ in oral Irish marking

The head of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) expects changes soon to a policy that allows members mark their own students in a Junior Certificate exam after this week’s strike over school-based assessment for State exams.

The numbers taking an optional spoken-Irish exam has jumped in recent years but the State Examinations Commission (SEC) does not pay for examiners to visit schools like it does for Leaving Certificate orals. Instead, it allows schools to organise them and send the marks on for addition by the SEC to results from written and listening exams in June.

The main reason behind the TUI and Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) strike that kept 340,000 students at home from school on Tuesday was their opposition to a requirement that teachers mark their own students.

Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan says they should do so in two pieces of coursework for a reformed Junior Certificate, which would be done in second year and third year, and be worth 40% of total marks in each subject.

TUI members are permitted by the union to test their own students for Junior Certificate oral Irish, as long as the work is done in normal class time or on a paid basis. Its president Gerry Quinn said the situation in relation to oral Irish is “a legacy issue”.

“You can reasonably expect there will be a change in that policy. What we understand is that many of these schools, if not most of them, are getting teachers from outside to do the work,” he said.

“We’re now, through this action, making a very public statement on where we stand in relation to this issue,” he said.

Another strike date in January is due to be announced soon, but the optional Junior Certificate tests in oral Irish and other languages are set to run from January 20 to March 21.

Out of 720 second-level schools, the number where students took an Irish oral test has risen from 54 in 2010 to 253 this year, when 14,172 (or 27%) of all those examined in Irish did so. The rise is linked to the marks for oral Irish at Leaving Certificate increasing from 25% to 40% in 2012, with a Junior Certificate oral seen as a good preparation.

While the ASTI directs members to not to correct exams that are not organised by the SEC, it accepts that schools organise optional Junior Certificate orals, but remains opposes such ad-hoc arrangements.

In schools where outside teachers are employed, usually for a fee from students and their families, there is no training for examiners or checking of standards. The unions say the risk of losing the standardised assessment guaranteed by the SEC’s involvement in the exams would undermine public confidence in the Junior Certificate.

Ms O’Sullivan has said 15% of coursework marking in schools would be spot-checked by the SEC, with training available to teachers on the kind of marking standards required, an assurance welcomed by groups representing parents’ and school management.