Sir, – The current industrial action on junior cycle is not about seeking additional money for teachers. However, recently disclosed documents from the previous government reveal that saving money drove the plan to dismantle the Junior Certificate examination (“Government considered secondary education fee”, January 19th).
The content of the declassified papers comes as little surprise to many. Teachers have always believed that the austerity agenda was a key driver in this move. This has informed our ongoing campaign to protect educational standards and the space, time and resources for teachers to teach and students to learn.
For several years, schools have been hit with a range of cutbacks by successive governments. Class sizes have increased and the pastoral support framework has been dismantled by the removal of middle management positions and guidance counselling provision. On a daily basis, teachers witness the damage that these cuts have wreaked on the educational experience of students.
Last week the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment chairwoman Brigid McManus commented that assessment change should be the driver underpinning Junior Cert reform and that if assessment does not change then nothing else will (“Student assessment is the key to proper reform of junior cycle”, January 13th). However, she failed to acknowledge that teachers are in favour of positive, fully resourced change that guarantees improvement. We fully agree with the Minister for Education and Skills that project work, portfolio work, practical work and other methods of evaluating student learning are vital elements of a modern, forward-looking system, but we believe that they should be externally assessed for certification purposes.
Teachers have shown how educational ideas such as “assessment for learning” are already part of the culture of Irish schools and are open to having this culture enhanced. Agreement with teachers is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of Junior Cycle reform. – Yours, etc,
GERRY QUINN,
President, Teachers’ Union
of Ireland (TUI),
Orwell Road,
Rathgar,
Dublin 6;
PHILIP IRWIN,
President,
Association of Secondary
Teachers in Ireland (ASTI),
Winetavern Street, Dublin 8.
Sir, – It has been repeatedly stated on RTÉ and other media outlets that second-level teachers are protesting against “junior cycle reform”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Teachers have been making positive suggestions about real reform in the junior cycle for many years now but central to this reform must be the retention of external state certification for the junior cycle.
Teachers and their unions are very much of the opinion that project and practical work, portfolios and other methods of evaluating students’ work all have a part to play in a modern assessment system. At present, several Junior Certificate subjects have several modes of assessment, such as practical or project work. All these are externally assessed by trained,objective and impartial examiners and second-level teachers firmly believe that this practice should continue. Forcing teachers to grade their own students for official state examinations fundamentally changes the student-teacher relationship, undermines educational standards and leads to inconsistencies and inequalities between schools. In short, teachers seek the retention of state-certification and objective external assessment.
It is ironic that by attempting to force teachers to grade their own pupils for state exams, the Department of Education is embarking on a course that has proved disastrous in other countries. Recently the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in the UK revealed that their members are being forced to manipulate results and rewrite work for students in the face of growing pressure to achieve attainment targets. In June it was reported that England’s exam regulators have received scores of complaints from whistleblowers about manipulation and grade inflation by schools in teacher-assessed exams and coursework. One complainant alleged that students were being told what to write in an English exam, another stated that an IT consultant was employed to complete students’ work. In parts of the US, the pressure on teachers to produce grades is so excessive that complex computer algorithms have to be used to determine if teachers have cheated when administering exams to their own students. Is this the vision that we want for our education system? – Yours, etc,
KEVIN P McCARTHY,
Killarney, Co Kerry.
Sir, – Despite the fact that the National Parents Council Post-Primary, the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union, the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools, the Joint Managerial Board, the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals and international educational experts, such as Prof Pasi Sahlberg, have come out in broad support of the proposed junior cycle reforms, the teacher unions continue to hold strikes in an attempt to block these reforms.
Despite the fact that it is outlined in the code of professional conduct for teachers that “teachers should maintain high standards of practice in relation to student learning, planning, monitoring, assessing, reporting and providing feedback”, the teacher unions continue to resist any reforms that include school-based teacher assessment (while acknowledging that this already exists in varying ways for many subjects). Assessing students’ work and providing them with feedback is an essential professional responsibility of teachers worldwide. Accepting this responsibility is not only central to promoting enhanced student learning through formative feedback but is also vital to the promotion of the teaching profession in Ireland. – Yours, etc,
Dr RAYMOND LYNCH,
Department of Education
and Professional Studies,
University of Limerick.