THE proposed introduction of a pilot project whereby teachers will assess their own students for the Junior Cert is likely to cause something of a stir at the upcoming teacher union conferences. The ASTI is ideologically opposed to teachers assessing their own students, while the TUI is more receptive, providing a number of conditions are met.
An unpublished report on the 10year-old Junior Cert is highly critical of the continued reliance on a terminal written exam for assessment. The new proposals would allow for various components to be assessed in schools by teachers in a school or by the students' own teachers. It may also explore how continuous assessment might be used, developing, for instance, the credit accumulation system currently in use in the Leaving Cert Applied.
Ireland is the only developed country which has "a fully externally examined system of written assessment at the end of the junior cycle phase of post-primary education," according to Progress Report: Issues and Options for Development prepared by the junior cycle review committee of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). There is an ongoing mismatch between the aims and principles of the Junior Cert programme and the modes and techniques in use for formal assessment.
Another as yet unpublished NCCA study, Subject Choice and Candidate Performance, shows that 85 per cent of students who sit the Junior Cert take Irish, English, maths, history, geography and science. Some 70 per cent also take French and business studies. No other subject is taken by more than 35 per cent.
For almost all students the Junior Cert means a written exam at the end of three year's work. But, there are hidden options which students and teachers may not know about.
There is an optional oral exam for English and Irish with 0.1 per cent of students sitting the oral in English in 1997 and 0.3 per cent sitting the Irish oral in the same year. Project work can be assessed in geography with 0.1 per cent of students taking this option.
The NCCA report notes that, although these options are available, "no training or support is provided for teachers who wish to offer such opportunities to their students. Some teachers of these subjects are unaware that the option exists."
In modern European languages, oral work can be assessed by the students' own teacher and a grade submitted. In 1998, 1.9 per cent of French students, 2.2 per cent of German and 0.04 per cent of Spanish students took this option. None of the Italian students availed of the oral option. Meanwhile in science, 3.4 per cent of students in 1997 took the local studies option which has been available since 1996.
The overemphasis on the verbal and the logico-mathematical in assessment and, consequently, in teaching and learning means that students whose strengths lie outside these areas may find the curriculum "irrelevant and boring. For these students the experience of failure is inevitable if assessment deals chiefly with the outcomes associated with the verbal and logico-mathematical and gives no formal recognition to other skills."
The report also notes that, from the perspective of assessment, early school-leavers are unlikely to be motivated by a certification system based on terminal assessment, at the end of three years. The expectation of failure is also a powerful demotivator. The experience of the Junior Cert School Programme shows that students identified as early school-leavers respond well to clearly identified short-term goals, to ongoing feedback and acknowledgement of success and achievement.
Given the well-proven link between time spent in education and employment opportunities "an assessment system which offers little incentive to students to stay in school and rewards only a narrow range of achievement does not contribute to the remediation of disadvantage. On the contrary, it can be accused of perpetuating the cycle of disadvantage."
As well as causing educational imbalance, the continuing reliance on external assessment is responsible for significant operational difficulties. In 1998, there were 1,805 written paper examiners for the Junior Cert and 801 practical/ project examiners. At the same time, the Leaving Cert required 1,605 written paper examiners, 1,333 oral examiners and 1,001 project/practical examiners. In all, some 2,300 teachers were withdrawn from their schools to conduct orals and assess projects and practicals.
The report states that the integrity of time in school for the full curriculum is threatened by the assessment of those subjects in the Junior and Leaving Cert which currently feature forms of assessment other than terminal written papers.
"It is also worth noting that the development of assessment in the Leaving Cert - an examination of greater significance for the vast majority of students - is restricted by the demands made on the system by the current nature and format of the Junior Cert exam."
The Junior Cert does not have a gatekeeper function - it's an important exam for schools and students but is, in common with similar certificates in other lower secondary systems, a "low stakes" exam.
