Sir, – According to Frances Ruane and Emer Smyth, the ESRI Post Primary Longitudinal Study demonstrates that “the current Junior Cycle is not providing an engaging and challenging experience for young people”. The reason promulgated for its inadequacies is the fact that a considerable amount of the current teaching cycle is devoted to “preparing for the Junior Certificate examination, spending extra time on study and grinds, and increased class time on ‘practising’ exam questions”.
This being so, the central issue is surely the nature of the methods used to assess the learning rather than the quality of that learning or the teaching behind it. It is worrying therefore that the new Junior Cycle that will be taught from September is currently without an agreed or even suggested framework of how exactly it will be assessed.
As a teacher of English who has undergone all the currently available in-service training – a one day seminar – I have major concerns about the way in which the Department of Education has gone about its reform of the Junior Cycle. While I welcome many aspects of the new curriculum, I suspect that those behind it have not fully considered the rationale behind much of it. We have been informed that the new methods of assessment are still being determined while Ruairí Quinn is simultaneously asserting that the ship has sailed. Is it not foolhardy to set sail without knowing one’s destination, or that the new destination is going to be an improvement on the old? Yours, etc,
CAROL McGUIRE,
Clogher Road,
Dublin 12