Scrap the Junior Cert??
I read in todays Irish Daily Mirror that the Department of Education and Science have drawn up plans to scrap the Junior Certificate. These plans, which I believe have been discussed at cabinet, would save over €30 million per year in terms of the expense of organising and correcting the exams.
Minister O’Keefe said in September that he is favour of a radical shake up of the Junior Certificate system and that we need to move away from the rote learning style of education that is so prevalent in Ireland today. I have to totally agree with the Minister on this issue. The proposals, as outlined in the Irish Mirror refer to a system of continuous assessment throughout the first 3 years of secondary school. This is undoubtedly better than terminal assessment. It gives pupils a chance to see how they are progressing and allows teachers ands parents to intervene far earlier in a child’s education if there is a cause for concern in his or his learning.
Strange how the Teaching Unions i.e. the TUI and the ASTI are against any such proposals. All educationalists accept that continuous assessment is a far fairer and more exact indicator of a childs educational development. Yet they are against it. Would it be because their members would lose out on the lucrative exam correction fees each summer, or the allowance for supervising exam centres? Or perhaps, they know that many of their members wouldnt be up for working all year-round. Many teachers focus all the attention on to the exam at the end of the Junior Cert. They look at the cycle of exam questions and teach to that level. There is no incentive to go beyond the narrow scope of the exam.
It is important to remember that even with continuous assessment, schools would still be free to set summer and winter exams. Junior Certificates would still be issued but this time based on a child’s endeavours over a 3 year period instead of a week in June.
Minister O’Keefe should bring these new changes in not because of the money saved but because of the better education we will give our children.
An Saoránach 
There’s huge merit in continuous assessment but to me the JC is just a practice run at the LC. Getting used to being tested on EVERYTHING, handling the 8 or 9 days in a row. It wouldn’t be fair to scrap one without the other.
Alma
November 2, 2009
Well you are right Alma, the Leaving Cert at present is just a contest at how much more you can remember than your classmates.
We need massive changes in the way we educate our kids.
Donnacha Maguire
November 2, 2009