Junior Certificate exam time criticised

Students and teachers have rejected exam officials’ suggestions that time was not a problem in this year’s Junior Certificate paper in English.

TDs and senators were told yesterday many students brought calculators into the exam to work out how much time to give each question as there was no certainty about the structure from sample papers provided by the State Examinations Commission (SEC).

The Oireachtas Petitions Committee heard from four students, who did the exam, that even the fastest writers were not all able to finish the paper in time. It was the first assessment of a new curriculum as part of wider junior cycle reforms, with a single two-hour exam replacing two papers previously taken on the subject.