Mr. Barry Slattery:

There was a very strong consensus that there was too much of a concentration at the end. I do not think there was a consensus on what the alternative should look like but the sense was there is too much of a concentration in the last three weeks, notwithstanding that depending on your subject combination you could have completed 50% or more of the coursework assessment in many of your subjects. Students were not in favour of one alternative but were certainly against the concentration they felt they were experiencing at the moment.

In addition to learning from other jurisdictions there is also much to learn from the leaving certificate applied programme that currently exists. It is a credit-based programme where the credits are allocated on the basis of different modules, so it is semesterised as it is broken into four sessions. Ms Forster mentioned the work with schools. That has flagged numerous times that one of the main directions for development in a redeveloped senior cycle is diversifying pathways. We have been asked to look at how we can break down any ring-fencing. There is also a very loud consensus from the reviews that we need to address the ring-fencing, which relates to many of the other issues we discussed earlier because it has a huge impact on parity of esteem and that has an impact on the uptake of the leaving certificate applied programme itself. There is much in that programme and as we work to break down the barriers between the various different programmes there is much opportunity there. It is really exciting.