Ms Andrea Feeney:

In response to the invitation to address the committee today, we suggested that there were other parties who might be able to have a more expansive discussion on some of these issues. Our role is quite clear in relation to the examinations. We are a delivery body and an agency of the Department. Our role is to implement policy at the direction of the Minister and as advised by the NCCA. We were involved in the junior cycle reform process as a party that was at the table and collective decisions were taken about the nature of assessment at an overall curriculum level and also at an individual subject level. Certain characteristics of the examination were decided in that central development process. These included no-choice examination papers, a common level other than in the subjects of Irish, English and mathematics, that exams were generally to last two hours and a particular grading structure. Another one of the central decisions taken related to the classroom-based assessments. The oral examination at junior cycle is a classroom-based assessment. The test of oral competency is a classroom-based assessment delivered and marked by the class teacher and reported on in the junior cycle profile of achievement. These all go back to central policy decisions. Our role is the delivery of the final examination. The conversation as to the form of the oral examination and any unhappiness with that form is not one we can respond on.

It is important to point out that, prior to the new junior cycle specification for Gaeilge coming in, not all students had the opportunity to have an oral assessment because it was optional. It was delivered by class teachers but it was optional not at the option of the candidate, but at the option of the school. Schools made decisions. There were varying mandates with regard to teachers assessing their own students and they were trying to navigate through all of that. In the context of junior cycle reform, it was considered that the most appropriate way to assess oral competency was in the classroom by the class teacher as one of the classroom-based assessments. That also gave the opportunity for all students to have their oral competency assessed, which had not been happening up to that point.