Convincing teachers to sign up for Leaving Cert duties while the country is reopening this summer will be a “huge problem,” according to an education expert.
Talks on a way forward for the State exam continued late into the night last night with no resolution.
Teacher unions, schools, student bodies and department officials are discussing whether a full written assessment should take, with some form of calculated grades process running in parallel.
The Education Minister Norma Foley had hoped to bring a plan to Cabinet this morning; however, she will now be updating her colleagues on progress as talks continue.
On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, guidance counsellor and columnist Brian Mooney said all sides are determined to find a resolution before the weekend.
“The complexity of the issues involved here is really difficult,” he said.
“Getting a package that will pass both the ASTI and TUI while meeting the requirements of getting these students through sixth year and on to college like last year is not easy – but they are still working on it.”
Mr Mooney said a system that includes predicted grades alongside the Leaving Cert remains the most likely outcome; however, he warned that the issues are all about timing.
"Huge problem"
He said that, with a system of assessed grades that allows students to move on to college, there is no need for a full-blown Leaving Cert; however, if students do not know what the calculated grades will throw up in good time, everyone will have to sit the Leaving Cert.
He said the “huge problem” facing education officials is that the running of the Leaving Cert has always been a “completely voluntary process.”
“In other words, teachers have to apply to do the work, whether it is running the orals, overseeing the exams in the month of June or even more importantly, correcting the papers,” he said.
“That requires an application from teachers who do this work voluntarily.
“I am wondering in the light of people having been locked down for the guts of a year, when we get to May or June, when hopefully we get to Level Two or Level Three and we are allowed outside our county – how many teachers are going to apply to correct the papers and sit in their houses for the month of July?”
Predictive grades
He said an assessed system similar to last year remains the most likely outcome – but warned it will only work if students can have a clear idea on where they stand so they can choose not to sit the formal exams.
He said teachers have been “using weekly tests to build up a body of work that would enable them to do an assessed grades process” since September.
“That has been happening so any talk that they don’t have the material is nonsense,” he said.
“That has been happening since September up to Christmas and in the period where they are working remotely.
“The problem of course is that that pushes the Leaving Cert back into a secondary process and effectively that is where the fightback from the ASTI came from.”
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