Minister for Education Norma Foley is to drop plans to move some Leaving Cert exams to fifth year in 2024 following sharp opposition from teachers and concern among students.
The change of plan is likely to raise questions about whether the Government will be able to deliver more ambitious Leaving Cert reform such as teacher-based marking and a greater emphasis on continual assessment across all subjects over the coming years.
Ms Foley’s plan to move the English and Irish paper one exams to the end of fifth year in 2024, announced last year, was aimed at easing pressure on exam candidates by spreading the assessment load over a longer period.
It followed a review of senior cycle by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) which recommended reducing the focus on high-stakes end-of-school exams in June and giving greater weight to continual assessment over a two- or three-year period.
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However, the plan to move exams to fifth year sparked controversy, with teachers’ unions criticising it as “half-baked” and “educationally unsound”.
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The Irish Second Level Students’ Union (ISSU), which supports the principle of spreading assessment into fifth year, also had concerns about potential disadvantage for students who skipped transition year and questioned what would happen to students who dropped from higher to ordinary level between fifth and sixth year.
A Department of Education source said on Monday that the Minister and her officials had engaged with teachers, students and parents’ representatives over recent months and agreed to pause the reforms for a year to address these concerns.
The Minister’s plans for wider Leaving Cert reform remain intact and she will announce the establishment of a new senior cycle redevelopment board, which will be charged with overseeing reforms, a source added.
In addition, there will be a senior cycle partners’ forum, which will involve education stakeholders in reform discussions.
The development represents a blow to Ms Foley’s reform plans. She said on numerous occasions that her greatest motivating factor in moving exams to fifth year was to reduce anxiety and stress for students who felt the focus on exams at the end of a two-year cycle was too much.
The move means many students may end up waiting until 2028 or later before significant Leaving Cert reform begins to roll out across schools in some subjects.
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Until recently, Ms Foley’s officials had been exploring potential changes to the exams in fifth year in a bid to win support among students, in particular.
These included moving essays for English and Irish from paper one at the end of fifth year to paper two at the end of sixth year. In addition, any prescribed texts such as poetry, plays or literature would have featured in paper two of both exams.
The concerns among student representatives, in particular, are understood to have played a key role in the decision to drop the reform plans for next year.
Internal Department of Education records, published in The Irish Times last year, showed that officials had described the plans as an “early win” in advance of more substantial Leaving Cert reform.
However, the same records showed that State Examinations Commission officials warned that the move could disadvantage male students, in particular, given their level of maturity.
Teachers’ Union of Ireland general secretary Michael Gillespie had warned that the move would particularly disadvantage roughly 25 per cent of students who either do not have access to, or who choose not to take up, the option of transition year.
The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) described overall plans as “change for the sake of change”, without any consideration of unintended consequences for students.
In addition, English and Irish teachers’ groups including the Irish National Organisation for Teachers of English (Inote) and An Gréasán said the plans would adversely affect students and severely hinder language learning.
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