Jennifer Horgan: Teachers' unions have got their way on Leaving Cert changes

Make no mistake, this decision to back away from teacher assessment is all about the souring relationship between teacher unions and the Department of Education, writes Jennifer Horgan

Having worked in the English system, I know how well teacher assessment can work. Teachers become absolute experts in the marking of their subjects. File picture: iStock

Teacher unions, backed by the loudest voices in the teaching profession, have finally got their way today. As per Minister Norma Foley’s U-turn announcement, teachers will not assess their own students as part of Leaving Certificate reforms.

Instead, some form of project work will be assessed by the State Examinations Commission (SEC) in only a very limited number of subjects, starting from September 2025, two years earlier than scheduled.

Norma Foley is calling it an ‘accelerated’ reform. I would call it an absolute cop-out.

Of course, I am grateful for the existence of teacher unions when it comes to protecting the rights of teachers. But that gratitude stops the moment I believe they are curtailing the fundamental rights of students. This is one such moment.

Make no mistake, this decision to back away from teacher assessment is all about the souring relationship between teacher unions and the Department of Education. It is also, sadly, about young people, about denying them access to a modern, meaningful and fair system of education.

The Background International reports have been very clear about the unnecessary pressure of our ‘all or nothing’ State exams in June.

A report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) describes our Leaving Cert as a period of “intense stress and pressure,” limiting space for the development of broader skills that are “critical for young people’s lifelong learning”. Our students, it reads, experience lower levels of overall life satisfaction than their peers in many other OECD countries, largely due to their fear of failure. 

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The report outlines that the sole focus on written exams in certain subjects means we lack the diversity of assessment in other countries, through teacher-assessed work or continual assessment.

In 2020, The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child asked Ireland to outline State efforts to reform the Leaving Certificate "with a view to reducing the stress caused to children". Under Norma Foley’s original reform package announced in March 2022, teachers would help relieve this stress by grading their own students for tasks, accounting for 40% of their overall mark, with the remaining 60% making up the June exams.

Today’s announcement means that my students will still sit exams worth 100%. Their ability in English, a core subject they can’t avoid, will still be assessed, and assessed solely, through timed essay writing. It’s a disgrace.

Having worked in the English system, I know how well teacher assessment can work. Teachers become absolute experts in the marking of their subjects. Clear objective marking is developed across the teaching profession (something we currently lack) and teachers regularly meet to compare notes and ensure consistency. It is wonderfully empowering. It requires time, support and training for teachers. That is all.

For students, it’s a game changer. The atmosphere changes. The pace slows. There is an opportunity for students with more oral or practical aptitudes to shine.

I am an English teacher who still has to stand behind a curriculum that forces students to learn quotations from 36 poems by heart. I have to stand behind a curriculum that requires students to write strictly timed essays for hours on end. 

I watch young people who can articulate themselves in ways that floor me in my classroom, but who will fail to represent themselves fairly on the page in a timed, stressful, exam setting. The creative side of my subject requires drafting, time for reflection and genuine development. This simply can’t happen in an exam setting.

This announcement is more of the same, more of the minister acquiescing to unions. The Junior Cycle, which is wonderfully designed, was similarly botched by the teacher unions’ intransigence.

Norma Foley is doing her best to put a positive spin on her defeat. She is trying to make the announcement seem like an amendment rather than an utter capitulation to the unions.

Her choice of subjects, those that will first experience this reform, is striking. They include Latin, Greek, Arabic and the new subjects, Drama, Film and Theatre Studies, and Climate Action and Sustainable Development.

These are some of the least popular and indeed least available subjects in the country. To put it into context, in 2021, 14 students took the Ancient Greek exam. In 2019, 192 students took Arabic, either at higher or ordinary level. On average, 60,000 students sit the Leaving Cert every year. 

Norma Foley has chosen these subjects for a reason, knowing the SEC is under enough pressure already. Still, the list looks good. The one positive is that business and the science subjects are included.

As for the new subjects, little is known in relation to potential take-up but it will no doubt be lower than many established courses out there. My school simply couldn’t manage the drama course as we have no school building, no stage and no hall. Many other schools are in the same boat.

Norma Foley has also tried to dress up her absolute U-turn by blaming artificial intelligence technology (AI). I struggle to understand her point. For one thing, students could complete their ongoing project work in the classroom, without technology, in the presence of their teachers. 

It is the pace and frenzy that students, and teachers like me, wish to avoid. And one wonders how AI won’t similarly affect the integrity of the assessments being marked by the SEC.

Foley insists teacher assessment remains a future possibility while the SEC researches the “potential role and impact of generative artificial intelligence in teacher-based assessment in particular”. 

It’s her final attempt to cushion the blow but it will mean little to the students facing more years of unnecessary stress in a system that is both falling behind the times, and more generally, most terribly, falling short.