Junior Cert: make the right choices

The knock-on effect of making the wrong subject choices for your Junior Certificate can be enormous and affect your future career and course options, writes Brian Mooney.

IT IS not an uncommon for a young person considering their choices for their Leaving Certificate to discover they are limited by the subject choices they made at the end of their first year in second level school, or in the case of a small number of schools, when they started into first year.

This experience reflects in the frustration felt by both the student and their parents. The most common reaction of families who find their son or daughter in this situation is to ask the simple question, "Why did somebody not explain what the implications of the choices we were asked to make at such an early stage in our child's second-level education?"

I am constantly asked this question by frustrated parents and students at educational events up and down the country. I was also challenged by various Ministers for Education and Science who came across the same issue in their constituency work and in meetings with parents representative bodies.

In 2006, I was requested by the Minister for Education to develop a facility within the QualifaX website to provide both students and parents with accurate information on the exact implications of the subject choices they were being asked to make at every stage of their second level education.

SUBJECT CHOICE MODULE

The result is the subject choice module available on the home page of Qualifax (www.qualifax.ie), which gives a definitive list of the subject entry requirements of every course in the CAO.

The raw data for this subject choice module was collected by Brian Howard, a member of the National Executive of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, and jointly published by the Institute of Guidance Counsellors and the Irish Times in booklet form for use by guidance counsellors.

FOUR KEY CHOICES

The module in Qualifax demonstrates that students entering the two-year Junior Certificate programme face four key choices, which have long-term implications for their future educational and career decisions. These choices are in the Irish, maths, science and Continental/third languages.

IRISH

Given the growing cultural diversity of Irish society, growing numbers of students enter second level schools holding a certificate exempting them from the study of Irish, because they meet the requirements set out by the Department of Education and Science. Other students are exempted because they have been advised to avoid studying the language for educational reasons, based on a specific learning difficulty, identified by an educational psychologist.

All other students are obliged to study Irish up to, and including, the Leaving Certificate. At the end of first year, students opt to study Irish for the Junior Certificate at either Higher, Ordinary or Foundation Level.

Those who do not study the language at Higher Level and who do not secure a minimum of grade C in their Leaving Certificate cannot study programmes leading to the career of primary school teaching. Qualifax lists 36 courses at CAO level which require a successful grade in Higher Level Irish.

MATHS

All second level students study maths. In 1999, a new curriculum was introduced in maths in primary schools which was more orientated to the "lived experience" of the subject. This programme is deemed to have been successful in developing and maintaining students' interest and competence. Unfortunately, the programme at second level has not been so user-friendly, and has attracted less that 20 per cent of students to pursue the subject at Higher Level for the Leaving Certificate.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is proposing to launch a revised maths programme in 24 second-level schools in September, 2008 which is designed to be a natural continuation and development of the current primary school programme. The plan is to mainstream it out to all second-level schools following a review of its operation. Unfortunately, this process will not be available to the current generation of second-level students.

Students who do not secure a minimum of a grade C in Higher Level maths cannot secure a place in an Honours Bachelor degree programme in engineering. Students are similarly precluded a number of mathematical, science and physics programmes. Qualifax identifies 85 degree programmes which require higher level maths as an entry requirement.

SCIENCE

Science is taught as a single subject at the Junior Certificate and is available as separate disciplines in chemistry, biology and physics in the Leaving Certificate. Students who are offered the option of not studying science for the Junior Certificate are highly unlikely to be in a position to take up the study of any science subject at Leaving Certificate level.

Qualifax shows that there are 177 courses offered through the CAO which require an applicant to present at least one science subject. These courses cover architecture, dental, engineering, food, health and safety, home economics, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physics, physiotherapy, science, speech and language, veterinary, as well as a range of other programmes. It would be foolhardy for a school to offer, or a student to decide, to drop science completely for the Junior Certificate.

Students who opt not to study a third language could be seriously limiting their choices later on. By far the greatest numbers of courses that preclude students from applying are those that require a Continental or third language. Qualifax lists 357 such courses, or over 30 per cent of all courses on offer through the CAO.

The colleges of the National University of Ireland in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Maynooth, and the constituent and associated colleges of the National University as listed in the NUI website (www.nui.ie), require a continental or third language for almost all of their courses. The exceptions are the engineering and science courses in UCD and NUI Maynooth, and the agricultural science programmes in UCD.

There is growing concern among language teachers at second level, and in the language departments of third level colleges, regarding the dilution of the third language requirement for entry. Given that we have a growing economic and cultural relationship with our fellow EU countries, it would seem that the requirement to be able to converse in at least one other EU language should be a benchmark of educational attainment for most second level students.

Students should exercise caution before dropping languages other than English and Irish at second year level.

There is a growing number of students who study languages other than French, German, Spanish and Italian. An examination of the success rates at Leaving Certificate level shows that students taking such languages are almost all securing very high higher level grades.

CONCLUSION

Apart from the four options listed above, the choices facing students at the beginning of the Junior Certificate programme do not adversely affect their ultimate course choices upon completion of the Leaving Certificate. Students are often faced with a range of other subject choices outside the core curriculum, which is obligatory under Department of Education regulations.

These may include the choice to study music or art, or to opt for one of the engineering/technological subjects if they are on offer. Business is another subject that students can often opt to include or exclude. I would advise students considering accounting as a Leaving Certificate subject to study business for the Junior Certificate. The Leaving Certificate subjects of business and economics can, however, be started from scratch, without having to have studied business in the Junior Certificate.

" It may seem ludicrous but the subject choices pupils make at age 12 can dictate their future education - even their future career