John Walshe A landmark day for Leaving Cert students

FIFTY years ago, the Leaving Certificate was taken by just 17,000 students and they formed a minority of Irish teenagers whose parents could afford to send them to secondary schools, all of which charged tuition fees.

Now, thanks to Donogh O’Malley’s Free Education scheme, an extra 40,000 students are taking the exam annually, representing more than nine in 10 young people in the relevant age group.

It’s not only the numbers taking the exam that have changed dramatically. Other exam statistics also reflect some of the seismic shifts in Irish society in recent decades.

This year, for instance, many of the ‘new’ Irish took papers in languages that would not have been available in the past – 687 took Polish, 267 took Romanian and 156 took Lithuanian, while 13 took the Czech papers. Exams in Maltese and Slovenian were offered for the first time this year.

Half a century ago there were just more than 21,000 full-time students in all of higher education, but there are nearly nine times that number in college nowadays and the trend is upwards, posing funding challenges for the sector. In addition, the post-Leaving Certificate sector was unheard of decades ago but now caters for huge numbers of holders of the Leaving Cert.

In the past, most Irish teenagers were in employment or had emigrated by the time they were 18 or 19 – now most of those celebrating their results today will be back in the autumn studying in either further or higher education colleges.

They will be encouraged to celebrate their results wisely and well by ministers who will be out today congratulating them. The ministers will also be responding to the strong criticism of the Leaving Cert in a report from Dublin City University this week. Dr Denise Burns suggested that a new study provided evidence for the folk wisdom that the Leaving Cert was about “rote learning and memory recall”.

The report caught ministers and officials on the hop as they were not aware of the level of criticism that was coming. The claim that little has changed since an earlier study in 1970 asserted that the Leaving was “an impossible and senseless burden on students’ memories” certainly caused a stir.

So, too, will last night’s claim by Ibec, the employers’ body, that the current Leaving Cert is not fit for purpose and that it leaves students with little opportunity to think critically, engage analytical skills and develop interpersonal skills.

Many of those students who get their results today will certainly feel they have benefited from their study and that they are ready for college and for life.

Some may feel that the timing of the criticism is a bit unfortunate and that it takes away from their achievements today.

However, there is an impetus for reform and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) has begun a review of senior cycle education. It’s working with 40 collaborating schools to generate “a shared vision for senior cycle and a strong base from which to shape a curriculum that genuinely meets the needs of all learners for years to come”.

Its website, www.ncca.ie, sets out an ambitious timetable for consultations, overview reports and a final advisory report is due in June of next year. Given the lengthy rows and ructions that preceded the limited agreed Junior Cycle reform, it’s difficult to envisage a consensus on changes for the Leaving by next summer, especially if they involve any element of teachers assessing their own students for exam purposes.

This means teachers assessing their own students in oral presentation, in laboratory skills, in written papers, in test conditions in many different ways. DCU’s Dr Burns worked in Queensland, Australia, which has school-based assessment of this kind.

“I experienced the huge growth in teacher professionalism as teachers became expert in the whole range of assessment issues, such as test methods, marking issues, etc,” she recalls.

We trust our third-level lecturers to assess their own students and she asks if we trust our second-level teachers to do the same. The answer is that some people certainly do but many in the main second-level teachers’ union – the ASTI – are very wary of the idea.

Parents would also take some convincing that such radical reform of the Leaving will benefit their children in the long run.

However, all of this discussion is of little relevance to those getting their results today. They will rightly be looking to the future once they get over their initial delight or disappointment with their results, which mark the culmination of an enormous effort by individual students.

As Nessa White, general secretary of Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI), remarked: “Students should feel very proud to have arrived at this day and it is important for them to acknowledge both their personal effort, that of their families and the contribution made by their teachers in assisting their reaching such a landmark day in their education.”

The Leaving Cert is not the end but rather a gateway to a myriad of education and training opportunities that were certainly not available in the past.

Donogh O’Malley would have been pleased.

The claim that little has changed since a study in 1970 asserted the Leaving Cert was ‘a senseless burden on students’ memories’ certainly caused a stir