JUNIOR CERTIFICATE RESULTS:CONCERN HAS been expressed at the number of students sitting the Junior Certificate maths examination at ordinary level.
More than half the 56,000 students who sat the exams did maths at ordinary level, with 7.4 per cent failing, unchanged from last year.
Fine Gael education spokesman Fergus O'Dowd said the results highlighted the problems with maths in the Irish school system.
"The results once again raise concerns about maths. Only 45 per cent of Junior Cert students took the higher level maths paper and, in the ordinary level paper, one in 12 failed," he said.
Some 45 per cent of students took higher level maths in the exams, but only 14 per cent of students sat higher level maths in the 2010 Leaving Certificate, Fine Gael innovation spokeswoman Deirdre Clune said
"The Government is still not addressing the underlying problems whereby two out of every three students sitting higher level maths in the Junior Cert are dropping the subject for their Leaving Cert, she said.
Meanwhile, business representative group Ibec has called for the replacement of the Junior Certificate with a less examination-focused curriculum, which would emphasise a broader range of skills and stimulate pupils enthusiasm for learning.
"The current over-crowded, rigid and subject-based curriculum dominates secondary school organisation and teaching practice. This represents a major missed opportunity to encourage the types of creativity, flexibility, independent thinking and appetite for learning that are so critical in later stages of education and work," Tony Donohoe, Ibec head of education policy said.
President of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) Jack Keane congratulated all the students, teachers and parents involved in this year's exam.
"One of the great successes of the Junior Certificate is its all-encompassing nature as evidenced by the growing numbers of non-traditional students taking the exam including students with special educational needs and newcomer students," he said.
However, he expressed concern about the impact of the education cutbacks on junior cycle education.
"The recent OECD report Education at a Glance 2010showed that out of 31 countries, Ireland's investment of 4.7 per cent of GDP in education exceeds that of only three OECD countries - the Slovak and Czech republics and Italy.
These statistics relate to 2007 and do not take into account the savage education cutbacks announced by our current Government," said Mr Keane.
A moratorium on middle management appointments is leading to the dismantling of pastoral care structures and is putting student wellbeing services in jeopardy, he added.