THE SCALING back of guidance counselling in schools will be most keenly felt among young students from disadvantaged backgrounds, according to an ESRI report.
Such students are “far more reliant on advice from their school in making post-school decisions, and particularly decisions in relation to higher education entry, educational quality and standards”, according to the paper by ESRI researchers Dr Emer Smyth and Dr Selina McCoy.
The report examines how the second-level school system can be improved at a time of cutbacks. The most recent OECD report highlighted an alarming drop in literacy levels among Irish teenagers and poor performance in maths and science.
It concludes that rigid grouping of students by ability, or “streaming”, harms overall educational outcomes. This happens, it states, because students assigned to lower ability classes tend to do much worse under streaming, while those assigned to higher ability classes do not make corresponding gains. So average student performance falls.
The ESRI researchers welcome how the new Junior Cert will examine the majority of subjects at a common level. However, it points out that separate higher and ordinary levels will remain for Irish, English and maths.
Overall, it says the success of the new Junior Cert will depend on the professional development and planning support provided to schools and teachers in implementing the curriculum. “The consequences for the quality of Irish education will also depend on the extent to which innovations at junior cycle are followed through into senior cycle and beyond.”
Without senior cycle reform, it warns, young people will move from a richer learning experience to a narrower one focused on final exams.
The paper argues that, while Irish education can learn from what other systems have got right, it is important not to fall into the trap of “policy borrowing”.
It also concludes that, by holding high expectations for all students and encouraging positive behaviour, schools can improve academic performance, reduce early school-leaving and avoid cycles of misbehaviour and disengagement from education.
It finds that second level in Ireland is relatively well-funded, with spending relative to per capita GDP in 2008 about the OECD average. Class size was also at average OECD levels.
