Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Our standardised exams are one-dimensional and cannot reflect the diversity of contemporary culture or prepare students for a society in a constant state of flux
The structure of our second level classrooms mirrors the stifling rigidity of the curriculum at Junior and Leaving Cert.
The teacher stands at the head of the classroom, prescribing information with authority to students who passively absorb it.
Yet, these rigid curricula are prescribed to teachers just as they are to students.
Our teachers are highly skilled, highly qualified professionals. However, our tightly defined and heavily standardised second level
curricula offer little opportunity for teachers to exercise the extent of their creative ability.
Teachers are best placed to assess and respond to the student as they interact with their learning material. Isn’t it time we empowered
them to do that?
One of the abiding attractions of standardised curricula and examination is their inherent fairness.
Students sit a universal exam and are anonymously assessed. Undoubtedly many students flourish within such a system, particularly
those with the financial means to access grinds and additional tuition, but it is how this system serves students in the long term that is the
issue.
Our heavily standardised curricula make the assumption that information is rare and hard to find, an assumption increasingly out of step
While defined tests like the Junior and Leaving Cert are designed for a culture that assumed the future would remain broadly similar to
Inevitably, these exams become the sole measure not only of students’ success, but also of teachers’.
Students’ exam results are a minuscule reflection of the work teachers do. The development of meaningful relationships, establishing the
trust necessary to encourage students to debate, to analyse and create, all take great time and great expertise.
This is what makes a good teacher. Yet, this is work that goes largely unrecognised by standardised exams primarily focused on
information recall.
While much is made of the stress endured by Junior and Leaving Cert students, teachers must tolerate this each and every year. Teachers
are under constant scrutiny not only through standardised testing, but external inspection and evaluation.
This illustrates a significant lack of both trust and respect for teachers as autonomous professionals.
Such a system does nothing to facilitate the communication, co-operation and collaborative work necessary among teachers for the
Instead, this relentless scrutiny often results in an atmosphere of anxiety and unhealthy competitiveness. Inevitably, this has
the level of their interaction with students and the range of activities they utilise.
When we consider the teachers who have had the most abiding, positive influences on our own lives, we will likely recall
encouragement, attentiveness and consideration, but these are not qualities that correspond with impersonal and stressful standardised
tests.
Rather, the Junior and Leaving Cert force teachers into a more administrative role, responsible for the technical implementation of
In 2014 the development of the new Junior Cert syllabus sought to address these significant shortcomings, most notably through the
However, while continuous assessment was central to the initial reforms proposed by the then minister for education Ruairí Quinn,
subsequent amendments have seen it whittled down to a mere 10 per cent of the overall grade.
Together with this, these continuous assessments will no longer be evaluated by teachers, but will be independently marked by the State
The diminished role of continuous assessment and transfer of evaluation to the SEC speaks to our slavish devotion to standardisation.
Far from ensuring fairness, independent assessment removes from the equation the student and their educational journey, both of which
assessment and accreditation rest with the completed document, thus failing to address the fundamental problems of the old system.
While teachers are ideally positioned to assess and respond to all aspects of their students’ learning, independent examination deprives
In this way teachers, like their students, are confined by a model of conformity that is utterly outdated. They are thus robbed of their
The uniformity of standardised education is failing students and teachers. Until teachers are granted a central role in assessment they will
Reformed education requires respect for the professional autonomy of teachers, granting them the freedom to make independent
decisions with regard to what is best for their students. Education isn’t a product, it’s a process.
Only teachers can offer true insight into that process. Reform in the absence of such insight is no reform at all.