Junior Cert Leaving Cert

AFTER MANY years of consultation, the NCCA published the report Junior Cycle Developments, Innovation and Identity, the summary of its consultation findings in February.
The new Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn has now set September 2012 as a target date for the introduction of a revised Junior Certificate programme.
As a precursor to the NCCA consultation process, the ESRI carried out research into the experiences of students in the junior cycle. Among the many issues highlighted, the research identified discontinuities in the learning experiences between primary and post-primary school; that students were often taking what appeared to be an excessive number of subjects; that curriculum provision in some schools was relatively “unbalanced” with many students having no access to subjects with a practical orientation; and that the pressure experienced by teachers to complete the course for the examination meant that, at certain times, an over-reliance on giving extensive notes or on textbooks become the norm.
At the same time, students expressed a preference for more varied approaches to teaching and learning, and were more engaged with learning when these approaches were used.
Four overarching concerns have emerged from the NCCA consultation process:
First, the existing junior cycle programme has inbuilt inequalities and does not meet the needs of all students. The challenge for any new curriculum is that it be accompanied by the resources required to ensure that disadvantaged students can benefit equally from it.
Second, there is the issue of how to get the balance right between a locally-devised curriculum and central control. Everyone agrees that schools should have more flexibility and freedom to develop programmes to meet their students’ needs, but the danger is that this will lead to highly differentiated learning experiences for students, escalating inequality and leading to a two-tier provision.
Third, there is the question of how to improve the connectivity between the new curriculum at junior cycle, and the primary and senior cycle education system. The negative influence of the Leaving Certificate programme and the points system on teaching and learning is highlighted.
Finally, there is broad agreement that any new junior cycle should have its own identity and not be seen as just a preparation for the Leaving Certificate.
Three outcomes for students at the end of the junior cycle are identified as desirable: that they become both independent and resourceful learners; that they develop confidence in themselves and their abilities; and that they become effective communicators enabled to interact with others.
To roll out this new curriculum within a little over a year is ambitious in the extreme. The scale of the changes being considered in both the curriculum to be presented to incoming first years in September 2012, and the teaching methodologies proposed to transmit it, will require intensive retraining of teachers as well as an information campaign to inform parents of the proposed changes.
The fact that all schools will have an additional 33 hours of time available to them from September 2011 onwards, may facilitate the beginnings of a long-term in-servicing of the existing pool of teachers, but if the proposals as outlined in the consultation findings just published are to be implemented in full, it will be many years before all of them can be realised. For all its faults and failings, the existing Junior Certificate programme has many strengths, which should not be jettisoned lightly. Let us proceed resolutely on this process of reform, but with caution.

Leaving Cert Junior Cert

Good Luck Everyone

More than 116,000 students will this morning begin the Leaving and Junior Cert exams.
Last night, Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn sent his best wishes to students, who, he said, were getting “the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and skills across a range of areas. This marks an important milestone in their lives”.
Exams in 90 subjects, including those at higher, ordinary and foundation levels, will take place in exam centres across the country. In addition, native speakers from other EU countries will sit examinations in their mother tongues at Leaving Certificate level in 15 non-curricular languages, such as Polish, Lithuanian and Romanian.
Mr Quinn expressed concern at the continuing decline in the number taking higher-level maths in the Leaving. A record low of only 10,435 candidates are registered to take the exam this year.
He hoped various Government initiatives would help to reverse the trend. These include the introduction of the Project Maths course, the planned bonus points for maths due next year and the Government’s national plan for literacy and numeracy.
This year, students in 24 schools will sit a new examination paper in the Junior Certificate in mathematics (Paper 2) for the first time, following the introduction of Project Maths in 2008.
In all, 14 Libyan students will sit the Leaving Cert in Ireland. They were due to take the exam at ISM International School in Tripoli – but cannot do so because of the security situation.
The school is still open, but Irish exam supervisors cannot travel there. An alternative provision to host the exams in Malta fell through because of visa problems.
Four candidates are taking the Leaving at the Institute of Education in Leeson Street, nine in Cork and one in Limerick.
One of the candidates, Joumana Ben Younes, arrived on Monday for the exam, having spent a month in Tunis awaiting her visa.
Her travails put the usual pre-exam stresses into perspective. “There has been a lot of fighting and shooting every night. It has been really difficult with the Gadafy military. We’re really scared of them. They are doing atrocities to the population.”
She is taking eight subjects (six higher and two lower), with a view to studying economics and politics abroad. “We just don’t have any international universities in Libya.”
Bozhidara Boyadzhieva, born in Libya of Bulgarian parents, managed to leave Libya before foreigners looking to escape overwhelmed the airport and seaports. She hopes to study international law in the Netherlands and is taking five higher-level and two ordinary-level subjects.
Moad Hesham Ben Zeghlam, a Libyan, is taking four higher and two ordinary-level exams.
Stefan Bozic, whose parents are Serbian, has also had visa problems. He had to spend two months in Slovenian capital Ljubljana awaiting a visa.
He is taking five higher and two ordinary-level subjects, and has applied to five universities to study civil engineering. “I’m predicting Bs,” he said.
Deirdre Walsh, the Institute of Education’s international officer, said the institute will try and help other Leaving Certificate students next year if the situation in Libya has not stabilised.
“They will have wasted their own second level if they can’t do their Leaving Certificate,” she said.