Leaving Cert reforms ‘favour children of affluent families’

The Government is presiding over senior cycle Leaving Certificate reform that “favours the children of affluent families”, the Dáil has been told.

Labour TD Eoghan Kenny also claimed that the reforms are “rushed” as he highlighted his own experience as a student, and as a teacher of business studies.

He said that “with the introduction of projects, 40 per cent of every subject is being left open to manipulation”.

The Cork North-Central TD also accused the Government of failing to engage with teachers on the reforms, which he described as “rushed, poorly thought out and poorly resourced”.

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The new reformed senior cycle reform syllabus starts in September for business, biology, chemistry, physics, Arabic, Latin and ancient Greek with Leaving Certificate exams in 2027.

New Minister for Education Helen McEntee said however, that a “huge amount of work has been done in terms of consultation” and that “this is not going to be a quick turnaround or a quick change”.

Ms McEntee said that engagement on the reforms started back in 2016, although “I appreciate the different stages more recently have come to the fore”.

She said she and her department were engaging with all stakeholders.

She said her priority is to ensure every student “regardless of their background” is supported to achieve their best in the test.

Mr Kenny, the youngest TD in the Dáil, raised the issue during Leaders’ Questions as he compared the facilities for children in private and local voluntary schools.

“Private schools are well equipped with technology, with suites of laboratories, with in some cases lab technicians to advise on the use of the lab itself,” he said.

“Then you move to the local voluntary school, 100-year-old infrastructure in place, more than likely two very basic science labs, sporadic wifi connections.”

He said he got taught for seven years in pre-fab classrooms and this was still happening in local and voluntary schools while the Government paid €90,000 a year for prefabs.

Citing his own experience of dealing with the Leaving Certificate reforms, he said he taught business studies. In September he had to tell transition year students “that I knew nothing about the specification that they were going to be doing. I have one training day, a few hours of in- service.

“How could I ask them possibly to try and keep on business studies if it was going to be the case that I did not know the specification?”

He called on the Minister to “put yourself in the shoes of a chemistry teacher who will be teaching the new syllabus, including a whopping 40 per cent (of total marks for the subject) individual project, and you’ve had basically a few hours of in-service (training). This is totally unfair.”

There was a failure to engage with teachers “who are the ones on the ground teaching these subjects”.

Ms McEntee said, however, that “we will always engage with our teachers because they are the only way in which this will happen”.

Since 2020 more than €6 billion had been spent on capital projects “and I have said very clearly to the unions that we will invest more, whether it’s in science labs, whether it’s making sure that more training is provided”.

She had asked officials to see if there is more they could do to ensure they are fully prepared “for the specific subjects that we have for September”.

The reforms aimed to ensure that students are equipped with the necessary skills to work in a world “which has changed completely”, economically and technologically. “It is so important that our State exams reflect all of this”.

The Minister pointed to the new transition year (TY) programme which means that for the first time 60,000 young people are able to avail of TY.