A STANDARDISED test for students and a greater focus on enterprise education are expected to be key features of the revised Junior Cert curriculum.
However the teacher unions are set to oppose any plans for more continuous assessment.
Amid growing concern about falling academic standards, Minister for Education and Skills, Mary Coughlan said yesterday Junior Cert students need to develop critical thinking skills and move away from rote learning.
Ms Coughlan was launching a consultation process on Junior Cert reform, conducted by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). She stressed no specific proposals would be made until the process was completed in the autumn.
The new standardised tests are likely to be rolled out for 13- and 14-year-olds. Standardised testing are already given to seven- and 11- year-olds at primary level, but there is no second-level equivalent.
The tests would be taken in all secondary schools but on different days. The hope is that the tests will provide valuable information for teachers without any exam stress for students.
Yesterday, Ms Coughlan hinted that the revised Junior Cert would be a “low-stakes’’ exam with more continuous assessment and portfolio work. But any move to give teachers a greater role in assessing their own students could be vigorously opposed by the second-level teacher unions.
Reflecting concerns about rote learning in the Junior Cert, the Minister said students needed to be “flexible, adaptable, resilient and competent if they are to participate successfully in society and be enabled as independent learners throughout the whole of their lives’’.
She pointed out how a series of Government reports had placed a key emphasis on the promotion of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, skills that must be promoted in the new Junior Cert.
The Minister said the experience of third years was still dominated by the Junior Cert, an exam of “diminishing importance”.