Just a brief nod to politics in a 'doable' exam

JUNIOR CERT CSPE COMMON LEVEL:IT WAS a case of current affairs without the politics, for Junior Cert students who were sitting the Civic, Social and Political Education exam yesterday afternoon.

Students were happy overall with the “doable” paper according to teachers, but they would have needed a good general knowledge as it departed somewhat from the pattern of previous exams.

A familiar question in which students are asked to identify photographs – normally of famous people, world leaders and so on – instead asked students to identify famous buildings.

“This has happened before,” said Brendan O’Regan, of the CSPE Teachers’ Association. “But it was surprising.”

Jeanne Barrett of the ASTI, who teaches in the Loreto College, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, observed that those setting the short questions in the paper seemed to stay away from politics.

“There was no mention of the political parties anywhere,” she said. “That may have had something to do with the general election and when they were setting the paper but it was very unusual.”

Section two provided students with an opportunity to show the range of their knowledge with questions about the environment, employment rights for the under-18s, crime and African development.

“There was an interesting question on why serious crimes need juries as well as judges, which demanded quite a bit of reflection,” Mr O’Regan said.

The main nod to politics came in section three – the long questions – when students were asked about the upcoming presidential campaign.

“That was a nice topical question,” Mr O’Regan said.

Also in that section were questions on the UN International Day of Peace, the EU and community development.

“There was no explicit question relating to the central concept of human rights,” said Ms Barrett. “Often students might expect a question relating to a specific campaigner they may have studied for example, but nothing like that appeared.”

Overall, however, the well-informed student should have had no problem with the paper, Ms Barrett said.