Cúnamh don bhéal triail

September 12, 2013

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New education body stalled: Pledge for single authority by end of year won’t be met

September 12, 2013

A single education body will not meet a Programme for Government commitment to be up and running by the end of the year, the chairman of the Education Committee has warned.

The troubled Education and Skills Authority (ESA) – which had run up a bill of more than £12m by the start of this year – remains stalled by political deadlock.
Talks between Sinn Fein and DUP continue over the shape of the super education authority, which will replace Northern Ireland’s current five education and library boards, as well as the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS).
At a meeting of the Assembly’s Education Committee yesterday, John McGrath, the Department of Education’s Deputy Secretary, pointed to “slippage” in the ESA timescale.
“Clearly there will be slippage in the 2013 timescale for ESA,” he told the Committee.
The committee’s chairman, North Antrim DUP MLA Mervyn Storey, has said that the proposed body will fall far short of its December 31 target for implementation, set out in the Programme for Government.
The PfG set out a commitment to “make the Education and Skills Authority operational in 2013”.
However, political agreement on the role and powers of the single educational authority appears to be some way off.
The DUP is currently considering a paper from Sinn Fein, which sets out the party’s position on a number of issues which are still stumbling blocks to ESA’s establishment.
The issues still causing political division include:
•Independence of the inspectorate, which inspects standards in schools.
•Who controls the controlled sector, which consists of Northern Ireland’s state schools.
•Issues over Irish medium schools.
•Issues over shared education.
“That’s only some of the issues,” Mr Storey told the Belfast Telegraph yesterday.
“No, ESA will not be up and running by December. ESA will only happen whenever it’s right – whenever there’s an ESA that’s workable and then, and only then, will it come into existence.”
He added: “There’s still issues in relation to the controlled sector and we are still working through the paper sent to us by Sinn Fein over the summer.
“It will take a long period of time to get through that paper and there will be no knee-jerk reaction.”
No one from the Department of Education was available for comment last night.

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk

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Teacher concern at abolition of Junior Cert

September 12, 2013

‘We believe every student is entitled to a fair, impartial and transparent State cert’
Junior Cert exam to be replaced by school assessments on phased basis

The president of Ireland’s main second-level teachers’ union says she was “deeply concerned” about the decision by the Minister for Education to abolish the Junior Cert.
In a message of congratulations to Junior Cert students, ASTI president Sally Maguire criticised plans by Ruairí Quinn which mean that from 2014 students will no longer sit the exam.
“Under the Minister’s proposals young people wh o spend five or six years participating in second-level education will not experience State certificate examinations until they reach Leaving Certificate,” Ms Maguire said.
She said the Junior Cert exam was invaluable Leaving Cert preparation and enabled students, parents and teachers to gauge aptitude prior to maki n g choices about the Leaving Cert.
Ms Maguire also expressed concerns about the legitimacy of the school-administered exams, graded by students’ own teachers, set to replace the State exam.
“We believe that every student is entitled to a fair, impartial and transparent State certificate to record their achievement at junior cycle. A school certificate based on grades awarded by students ’ own teachers does not have t he same status or validity as an independent State certificate.”
This year’s Junior Cert results will be one of the last under the current model, in place since 1991.
The reforms announced by Minister Quinn in October 2012 will be introduced on a phased basis from 2014.
The new English curriculum will be the first to be introduced to first years in 2014, followed by Irish, science and business studies for first years in 2015.
Under the reforms, the Junior Cert exam will be replaced by school-based assessment, with an emphasis on the quality of the students’ learning experience. Ms Maguire urged students celebrating their results to act responsibly. Higher level maths The Irish Second-Level Students’ Union said it was happy with the steady rise in the number of Junior Cert students taking higher level maths. It appealed to students “to be responsible and mindful to others in their celebrations”.
Minister of St at e f or Research Sean Sherlock said the increasing number of students taking higher level maths was welcome. More students also taking science at higher level was “an important step to building Ireland’s knowledge economy”.

www.irishtimes.com

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