System must be trustworthy

School exam changes

Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan meets teachers today in the latest round of talks on plans developed by her predecessor Ruairi Quinn two years ago to re-engineer school exams. Ironically, this is one of the promised reform projects Government has advanced but it has run into considerable difficulties in securing teacher support.

Teacher leaders have said that there are issues other than those around who marks student exam papers — it is proposed that teachers mark their own students for the junior cert or whatever exam replaces it.

Feelings are running so very high that ASTI’s and TUI’s 27,000 members in secondary schools have blocked training, school planning or teaching short courses for the Junior Cycle Student Award (JCSA) since April. Both unions have voted to move to strike action if the dispute is not resolved.

In this issue teachers do seem to have a strong argument and unless their fears are allayed it is hard to see how further conflict can be avoided. The suggestion that they mark their own students’ work seems out of step at a moment when professional self-regulation has been so discredited and seen to be very costly to society. The integrity of the system would be, it seems, undermined by allowing teachers access their own students’ exams and they would be unnecessarily exposed too. The measure, and the downgrading of several subjects such as history and geography, must be reconsidered too.