Vol. 504 No. 7
27 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Education and Science if the assessment systems used in junior certificate schools programmes and leaving certificate applied programmes are capable of being applied in the traditional streams of these examinations. [13022/99]
The junior certificate school programme is an intervention which operates within the junior certificate and not as an alternative to it. It sets out to make the experience of school relevant and accessible to those young people who find it difficult to cope with the school system and who would benefit from special support in working to the aims of the junior certificate.
All participants follow courses leading to the foundation level examinations at junior certificate in English and mathematics and other subjects on an optional basis which involves the conventional modes of assessment of the junior certificate.
In addition, a student profiling system is used. This gives students credit for what they have learned and achieved, including skills and knowledge which are not currently part of the formal junior certificate examination.
The leaving certificate applied is assessed in three modes: satisfactory completion of modules; performance of student tasks and performance in the terminal examinations. Essentially this approach gives weighting to a series of assessments prior to the terminal examination. These assessments are externally conducted in that they are performed by qualified teachers drawn from other schools. There is no doubt that the leaving certificate applied has contributed significantly to our key objective of providing an educational experience which meets the needs of a wide diversity of students.
As the Deputy will be aware, the junior certificate and conventional leaving certificate remain heavily focused upon the terminal examination. This focus is at variance with much international practice where continuous assessment of students by their own teachers, suitably moderated, is very much the norm. In this country the issue of teacher assessment has proved to be a long-standing area of difficulty for teachers.
When introducing the leaving certificate applied it was possible, because of the limited scale of this new programme, to accommodate these concerns by providing a model of continuous assessment which is essentially externally based. Such an approach could not be applied to the junior certificate and leaving certificate examinations at present because of the sheer scale of these examinations and the stark realities of both finite examiner supply and the enormous disruption for schools and students in withdrawing additional large numbers of examiners from their schools to examine in other schools.
As Minister, I have no difficulty in acknowledging that the current situation is far from satisfactory and in need of both review and reform. I have asked my officials to examine the situation and bring forward proposals for discussion.
I welcome the last sentence of the Minister's answer because it is quite clear the review commission will look for significant change in this area. Why does the Minister believe it would not be possible to extend profiling and some element of external modulation beyond the present scale? Surely, that would be one way to overcome the concerns about a teacher being judge in the case of his own pupil, which is the nub of this difficulty.
To be frank, there are very significant logistical implications involved in endeavouring to move to a broad external assessment process for the leaving and junior certificates as they are constituted at present. In other words, we would have to remove hundreds more teachers from schools to go to other schools to externally examine students. The system at present could not accommodate that change. That is a significant factor and there is no point pretending we could do that overnight. We must engage with the partners in education to see if we can, collectively, improve the situation as regards the leaving and junior certificates.
Is it not the case that much of the profiling and the module completion is being done internally by teachers assessing pupils and it does not seem to create the difficulties further reform may create? Will the Minister consider sitting down immediately with the unions concerned and exploring this issue? It is a major block to broadening our base of examination to recognise multiple intelligence and so on. The Minister and virtually the entire House are anxious to see reform. If it is a priority, will the Minister face this issue head on and start the process of consultation as a matter of urgency?
I am preparing a discussion paper on this subject which I will make available to the partners when it is completed. Nonetheless, it is important to point out that we have three types of examination at leaving certificate level and we do not want to return to a situation where everyone is examined in the same way because it is quite clear there is significant diversity of abilities, talents and strengths within the overall second level cohort. There will always be different methods of assessment of those different talents and abilities. We need a system which can accommodate and assess that diversity. We have made significant progress with the leaving certificate applied. We secured the agreement of the partners in that respect and we must move forward in that context.
Does the Minister accept there is a need to radically expand the junior and leaving certificate applied programmes? The junior certificate applied reaches 1.5 per cent of the cohort.
Both programmes have been expanded over the past two years, and continue to be expanded significantly.
