Sir, – Your editorial on reform of the Leaving Cert (“The Irish Times view on the Leaving Cert: a lost chance for radical reform”, September 25th) presents a somewhat one-sided view of the risks and benefits associated with proposed changes to the Leaving Certificate. It would be remiss not to acknowledge that many commentators and critics of the Minister’s proposal have raised consistent and valid concerns that the Minister and her department failed to address.
Your editorial focused primarily on two proposed changes that have been paused. The first of these is increased teacher assessment of their own pupils. As you note, this was to an extent seen during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, it is remiss not to mention the negative experiences associated with that process. In addition to the levels of grade inflation seen, which continue to be an issue, significant biases were also evidenced in the teacher assessed grades. Given that the Leaving Certificate is an exercise in ranking students, this led inevitably to a disproportionally negative outcome for some groups. The report from the National Standardisation Group to the Independent Steering Committee and the Programme Board, noted that the gap in results on the basis of gender was too great to be considered a continuation of a trend. The Irish Times reported that “... There is evidence of ‘unconscious bias’ in favour of girls in the estimated marks provided by schools for this year’s Leaving Cert students, according to an official analysis of grades” (News, September 6th, 2021).
Notably, this outcome didn’t come as a surprise to the department, with this effect being largely expected based on international experience. However, the predicted grades exercise did give us clear evidence of the extent of “unconscious bias” in any teacher-led assessment. This vindicates the push against this approach by many in the educational system. The compromise, whereby continuous assessment will be marked independently, would appear to be a minimum safeguard for students and should be applauded
The second change discussed in your editorial involved the proposal to move a selection of papers to the end of fifth year. As noted in The Irish Times (August 22nd, 2022), the State Examination Committee raised the point with the Minister that this would significantly disadvantage male students, and a number of educators raised their opposition to the proposal, which was advanced on the basis of a desire to achieve some “quick wins” in educational reform.
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Again, it would seem that the shelving of this change, at least until suitable safeguards could be devised, is both prudent and desirable.
It is unfortunate that The Irish Times laments the need for political will and meaningful consultation to advance reform. The evidence for both of these proposed changes was that there was plenty of political will but very little consultation. Given the apparent flaws in these proposals, and their impact, it is important to acknowledge the potential downsides of these proposals. – Yours, etc,
ALBERT WINSTON,
Dublin 11.
Sir, – In your recent editorial, you suggest that there is an overemphasis on written exams and that this is limiting space for the development of critical thinking and creative skills. It is suggested that reform of the terminal assessment, specifically incorporating teacher-based continual assessments, will cure all ills.
First, the vast majority of subjects in the Senior Cycle have a second assessment component already, which accounts for a significant proportion of the final grade.
Second, examinations, while a crude tool, are the fairest ways of assessing student abilities objectively. It is unfair to suggest that examinations cannot assess critical thinking or creativity; a review of any recent Leaving Certificate examination paper will quickly tell you otherwise, where students are challenged to write short stories, analyse experimental data or critically evaluate historical sources.
Third, it is more important that the curriculums underpinning our senior cycle are revised and reformed on a regular basis. It shouldn’t be acceptable that our senior science syllabuses be in place for over 20 years without reform, when advances in science are continually occurring. Gladly, there is some movement here but a mechanism for regular review and revision is required.
Finally, it could be argued that the assessment of the Leaving Cert is not the issue at all. Instead, it is the unhealthy coupling of that assessment with the CAO – a body outside the remit of the Department of Education and solely owned by Irish universities – that is the issue. Sadly, students no longer speak of their various experiences, successes and achievements over six years of secondary education; instead, their entire experience is reduced to a cumulative CAO points total. If the CAO were to be reformed and our universities used a broader range of metrics in the application process, the perceived overemphasis on written exams would be negated and a greater emphasis would be placed on the students’ experience of Senior Cycle.
Perhaps the Government needs to show political will and engage in meaningful consultation with the universities first and foremost? – Yours, etc,
HUMPHREY JONES,
Dublin 16.