THE Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme is expanding at a rate which makes the Department of Education's projected target of participation from 30 per cent of the Leaving Certificate student population appear conservative.

John Hammond, national co-ordinator of the LCVP, expects this target to be reached shortly. He envisages a situation, in the future, where most schools will have some students undertaking the programme.

This year, 150 schools joined the 126 schools already providing the LCVP. In addition to the implications for students, teachers have had to adjust to the new programme.

Over the past year, the programme involved 120 in-service training sessions in which 3,484 teachers and principals participated, resulting in 16,678 contact hours of in-service, according to a progress report which was prepared by the LCVP office in consultation with the Department of Education.

The LCVP is being marketed as a "Leaving Certificate plus". Students must take between five and seven "traditional" Leaving Certificate subjects in vocationally-oriented subject groupings and three additional short course or link modules. These modules comprise enterprise education, preparation for work and work experience.

John Hammond stresses that the programme is aimed "right across the board. It is not a programme targetted at weaker students, although it would be true to say it's more likely to contribute to more of these students having a meaningful experience at senior cycle."

The Subject groupings have proved the most difficult aspect of the LCVP to implement at school level with many schools reporting difficulties in establishing a group of 20 students to take the same subject grouping.

Hammond says that there will be a review of this whole area over the next school year.

"We are looking at the possibility of making these groupings more flexible and we are considering the idea of schools developing their own vocational groupings. For instance, schools in the west of Ireland might be in areas closely associated with tourism so a grouping of English, Irish, history, geography, home economics and business organisation might feed into tourism. A school in the Lucan/Leixlip area of Co Dublin which has a concentration of high technology industry might look at a technological type grouping of subjects," he explains.

The other major issue still looming over the LCVP is the accreditation of the link modules. A proposal document on recognition was presented by the Department of Education to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, the RTCs and the DIT, the Conference of the Heads of Irish Universities, IBEC, further education and training bodies and other relevant national organisations.

It contained two main proposals. First, a statement on the added value of the LCVP should he circulated to relevant national organisations to elicit statements on how such organisations view the advent of the LCVP as an educational programme and LCVP students as potential employees.

The second proposal was that the link moduels would be accepted for points purposes by third-level educational institutions on the basis that the modules would not be treated as a full subject equivalent.

Thirty points would be awarded for a pass, 50 points for a merit and 70 points for a distinction. Students would have the opportunity to use their points allocation for the link modules as their sixth subject for the purposes of calculating points.

The NCCA has supported the proposals with the proviso that they are introduced on a trial basis for a defined period. They are currently being considered by the various third-level institutions and a decision is expected soon.

The first cohort of over 1,200 students completed the LCVP this year including assessment on their work in the link modules. Of these, 36 per cent gained a distinction (80 to 100 per cent), 38 per cent gained a merit (65 to 79 per cent) and 17 per cent obtained a pass (50 to 64 per cent). Nine per cent did not pass.

An independent office, funded by the Department of Education, and based in Marino Institute of Education in Dublin, acts as a support unit for the LCVP. In addition to Hammond, the full-time co-ordinator, staff include a full-time secretary and three part-time regionally based development officers. The LCVP office can be contacted at (01) 853 0728