The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) is to be granted statutory powers as an advisory body to the Minister for Education, the Irish Times has learned. One of the first tasks of the newly-strengthened council will be a radical re-evaluation of the Junior Certificate.
The Minister, Mr Martin, is to widen the NCCA's powers under legislation to be published before Christmas. The NCCA currently has only a consultative function in law, although in recent years it has successfully carried out the large and difficult job of completely reforming both the second-level school curriculum and - by this autumn - the primary school curriculum.
Mr Martin is known to believe that if up to 90 per cent of students are, as he plans, to take the Leaving Certificate programme by the year 2000, a thorough re-evaluation of the Junior Certificate is needed.
He thinks it is inadequate to treat the exam taken by most 15year-olds as merely an academic milestone on the road to the Leaving Certificate. He wants it to concentrate more on practical, oral and computer skills, and he is open to the idea that it could be examined by means of continuous assessment.
He wants the NCCA to be placed on a statutory basis (to strengthen its role and secure its long-term future) to make recommendations on this.
Speaking at a school in Cork yesterday, where he met Leaving Cert students who had just received their results, Mr Martin said he had asked the NCCA to look at the possibility of oral exams in English, both at Leaving Cert and Junior Cert levels. "It seems to me one of the greatest skills people need going out into the marketplace is a basic competency in oral English," he said. He stressed that school students should gain written and oral competency in the basics of the English language before studying poetry, prose and drama.
The Minister said he hoped eventually to introduce Information Technology as a second-level subject. He also announced the names of six new independent exam appeal commissioners, including former Revenue Commissioners chairman, Mr Seamus Pairceir; former National Library director, Ms Pat Donlon; and former general secretary of the Garda Representative Association, Mr Jack Marrinan.
The Minister's plan to put the NCCA on a statutory basis will be widely welcomed by all the education partners. There was considerable surprise that the highly-regarded curriculum body did not even rate a mention in the last government's Education Bill in January. Under pressure from the social partners, the former Minister, Ms Breathnach, was later forced to promise an amendment to "reflect" the NCCA's advisory role.
It is understood Mr Martin wants to expand the NCCA's role in evaluating courses and exams. He is sympathetic to the NCCA's argument that as the body which devised the new primary and post-primary curriculums, it should have a role in disseminating, explaining and evaluating them. He also wants it to develop teacher guidelines for new subjects like Information Technology.
In its election manifesto, Fianna Fail promised to "broaden the remit" of the NCCA and extend its role to "include the evaluation of the council's own reforms". The NCCA's membership would be broadened "to include more expertise relevant to the needs of the many students who drop out from education".
His thinking on this is similar to at least one of the options proposed in a private paper prepared by the NCCA last month for internal discussions on its future role. This notes that much of its work in reforming the school curriculums is near completion and the focus should now shift to their implementation, an area in which the NCCA currently has little or no role.
It then outlines a number of options for future development. The first of these is to continue in its present role as an advisory body, but broadened to deal with issues of educational disadvantage.
Another option would see the NCCA evaluating the effectiveness and quality of both the new and the overall curriculums "at system as opposed to individual school level". The latter task would remain that of the Department of Education's inspectors.