Yet again, students in an allegedly low-stakes Junior Cycle exam failed to achieve a fraction of the high grades awarded in the Leaving Cert. Yes, we all know that the Leaving Cert grades were inflated during the pandemic. The stinging political nettle of reducing them to more realistic levels has been grasped so gingerly that we will only begin the gradual process in 2025.
Even so, how credible is it that only 2.6 per cent of those sitting JC higher level English and 3 per cent at ordinary level were capable of achieving a distinction – that is, 90 per cent or more marks? Meanwhile, at LC Level, 6.9 per cent of higher level students and 4.1 per cent of ordinary level students got a H1 (90 per cent or over). How are the bell curves so different? And English has one of the smaller gaps in grades between JC and LC.
High grades are notoriously hard to achieve in English, so what about science? Much to the disgust of science teachers, JC science is now a common level subject. This is not elitism. Teachers, not just of science, worry that common-level papers are too challenging for what used to be termed ordinary level students. Those students often did very well at ordinary level, and glowed with an achievement now no longer available to them.
In JC science, 3.5 per cent achieved a distinction, while at LC level, H1s ranged from 22 per cent in Chemistry, to 20.7 in Physics and 19 per cent in Biology. Even allowing for rampant grade inflation, this is insane.
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While by no means a perfect measure, the most recent OECD PISA report is an indicator that Irish students do not lack ability or skills. Irish 15-year-olds had the highest reading literacy levels of 37 OECD countries. Ireland ranked seventh for maths performance and eighth for science. Yet our JC grades continue to be stubbornly out of whack with our LC results.
Some teachers believe that deliberate grade deflation is designed to chasten teachers complaining that the current Junior Cycle subjects have been dumbed down. Apparently, the fact that it is so hard to achieve high grades is evidence that rigour is being applied. This is nonsense. Annual marking conferences determine how grades are allocated regardless of whether the original subject specification is adequate.
Whatever the reason, grading that applies at some third level institutions – that is, rarely awarding above 70 per cent – now seems to apply at JC level. There is an irony in awarding much higher grades at LC which will determine students’ university entry, where once again, a much more restricted grade band will likely apply. (That is if the lottery in certain highly prized courses allows them entry.)
It might seem frivolous to worry about JC grades while children with autism cannot even find school places, and schools cannot recruit qualified teachers, but it is a symptom of a wider failure.
The JC reform ignored teachers’ real worries. Now they fear that the Leaving Cert reform already under way will be the same.
The Irish Science Teachers’ Association (ISTA) has expressed serious concerns about the new draft specifications for Senior Cycle Biology, Physics and Chemistry. One of their many issues was that some schools have grossly inadequate lab facilities, but are expected to manage new mandatory additional assessments, which count for a whopping 40 per cent.
Somehow, €9 million was found for phone pouches, but I have been able to find nothing in the Budget for additional funding for labs, much less lab assistants. Sure, payments per student to schools increased, but nowhere near enough to compensate for Ireland languishing in last place out of 34 countries for investment in second-level education as a percentage of GDP.
Anyone who thinks that additional assessment components will reduce stress has never been in a school around the time of oral exams, which in Irish already comprise 40 per cent of the mark. Not to mention the fact that Generative AI has rendered essays and projects completed outside a supervised exam setting wide open to plagiarism.
To combat this, as veteran English teacher Julian Girdham points out, it is in theory possible to design a meaningful externally moderated additional assessment like an oral English exam, but it would be enormously costly in time, money and organisation – all of which our education system lacks.
And when, in an already overcrowded school year, are all these additional assessments in every subject supposed to take place? Meanwhile, in OCR A Levels in England, students must complete mandatory laboratory work, but only receive marks for the terminal exam, while in the challenging International Baccalaureat, marks for the classroom or lab work only amount to 20 per cent in biology.
There is a persuasive case for postponing additional assessment components or reducing the percentage of marks allocated to them by at least half to 20 per cent. Otherwise, the same students facing frustration at mediocre marks in the Junior Cycle will also be the guinea pigs for the new Senior Cycle, which is doubly unfair.