Students calling for hybrid Leaving Cert

Teaching unions have opposed changing the exam structure, but students say they are unprepared for traditional exams.

Calls are mounting for the implementation of a hybrid Leaving Cert, with students' unions claiming the current plan for traditional exams is showing a "complete disregard for students' best interests".

Among the issues raised is that students who are isolating and missing class time have no access to online tuition. 

While the State and teachers' unions say that traditional State examinations must take place this year, students are calling for the reinstatement of last year’s hybrid Leaving Certificate, where candidates were offered a choice between sitting exams or receiving predicted grades.

The State Examinations Commission has said it is “advancing all preparations for the 2022 Leaving Certificate and Junior Cycle examinations”, including written examinations in June.

Before the beginning of the academic year, adjustments to Leaving and Junior Certificate 2022 exams were announced, in recognition of the impacts of the pandemic, including more time for practical coursework and increased choice on written exams.

An additional set of Leaving Certificate examinations will also be run in 2022, for students who miss the first set due to close family bereavement, for public health reasons related to Covid-19, or due to serious illness.

'Disregard for students' interests'

The Irish Second-Level Students' Union (ISSU) has said that the current plan for 2022 exams is a “complete disregard for students' best interests”.

The ISSU is currently surveying second-level students, with provisional results showing a clear favour towards a hybrid model examination.

“This year's cohort of exam students has been very vocal about the disruption they are facing in and out of the classroom. There is no online tuition provided to those isolating, and students have missed class time throughout 2021 and 2020, as a result of school closures. There is no way we can stand over assessing these students with the traditional Leaving Certificate,” said ISSU uachtarán Emer Neville.

The Teachers’ Union of Ireland has said there is “no justification” for offering additional options to students, and that the Junior and Leaving Certificate examinations must return this year. The Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland has also said it is committed to an externally assessed Leaving Certificate.

As the pandemic has now disrupted three years of schooling, in some schools more than half of Leaving Certificate students did not have the opportunity to sit their Junior Certificate exams.

Predicted grading 'not viable'

Both unions say this is a key reason why the “once-off” predicted grading process is not viable this year, as the standardisation process would be “impossible” and “unfair” to replicate without Junior Cert data.

However, Leaving Certificate students say it would be unfair to have to sit traditional exams.

“The idea of a traditional Leaving Cert worries me a lot. I don’t think there is enough choice in the papers for the amount of time I have missed, especially considering I have never sat a State exam before,” said Evan McGlynn, a Leaving Certificate student in Hartstown Community School, Dublin.

Saoirse Brazil-Kearney, a Leaving Certificate student in Cork Educate Together Secondary School, says that most of her peers want to see a hybrid system.

“We don't want to sit a traditional Leaving Cert like back 2017, because we didn't have the opportunity to study the same way those students did back then. They didn't have a pandemic to go through, but we did,” she said.