Text size

Junior Cert overhaul is to be applauded

October 29, 2013

WE HAVE known for some time about general plans to modernise and update the Junior Certificate syllabus.

But today we find out in more detail about some exciting things that will be involved. Included in a number of new short courses for students will be opportunities to get recognition for achievements in sport, computers and socially useful things like promoting community mental health. As our education editor writes in this newspaper today, these developments will for the first time ever give 15- and 16-year-olds a chance to show what they can do outside of the examination hall. The plans appear to be innovative efforts to promote practical life-skills and help advance self-reliance and the ability to think and solve problems.

The old-style examinations have for long promoted a practice in too many schools described as ‘teaching to the test’. In that culture, the most important item in a student’s schoolbag has been the ‘past papers’, which shape far too much of what happens in the classroom. The plans are being developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment and other equally exciting plans are also currently being finessed. These include the prospect of Chinese, electronic media literacy, the performing arts and care for animals. The core subjects of mathematics, English and Irish will be retained. But the traditional Junior Certificate examination every June will over time become a thing of the past with a move to continuous assessment again complementing an emphasis on on-going learning rather than preparing for an examination ordeal.

We are heartened that there will be an emphasis on cultivating literacy and numeracy skills. We applaud news that there will be a focus on cultivating computer literacy as in many ways people who are deprived of such skills are becoming the new illiterates of our society. The changes will bring challenges and practical difficulties for school principals, teachers, pupils and parents. Teacher training and liaison with parents will be very important elements in a smooth transition to the new syllabus. Currently, moves to phase in the new Junior Certificate face a blockage due to industrial action by the secondary teachers’ union, ASTI. But it is to be hoped that this matter can be overcome. It will be a particular challenge for the Department of Education to oversee the management of a considerable change in thinking and practice.

www.independent.ie