Teachers may be assisting students too much, report finds
The observations emerge from a report published today by the State Examinations Commission’s (SEC) chief examiner for LCA.
LCA is an alternative to the traditional Leaving Certificate, in which students build up credits from tasks and assessments over two years in areas of vocational preparation, and vocational and general education.
The numbers taking the programme have fluctuated in recent years, with the 2,965 completing LCA in 2014 being 12% fewer than the 3,358 in 2010.
The report says LCA and all its assessment elements are clearly being implemented with care and diligence by teachers and school authorities.
While teacher involvement is crucial, the chief examiner wrote, the main responsibility for tasks rests with students and it must be their own work. But there was evidence from LCA examiners of inappropriate levels of teacher guidance in some centres.
“This was evidenced by a high level of uniformity of tasks within a class group, a lack of understanding of the aims and purpose of the task, and, in particular, inconsistency between the task report and candidate knowledge and understanding, as demonstrated at interview,” the report says.
It said teacher input was very evident in some centres, where group tasks were very similar in their layout, “in some cases appearing to be more teacher-driven than teacher-led”.
The finding comes as teacher unions remain in dispute with the Department of Education over school-based assessment of junior cycle students, with one concern being potential perceptions of teachers marking some of their own students more favourably or harder than others.
A briefing hosted by Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan for education groups last week outlined a proposed system of subject meetings to ensure consistent marking within schools.
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