Professor Áine Hyland:

I am going focus briefly on two issues, namely, the reform of the leaving certificate and the current specifications for the revision of subjects. In reforming the leaving certificate, I strongly favour additional forms of assessment for every subject that could be carried out during, and not at the end of, the two-year senior cycle, so that by May or June of the final year, students would already have completed at least 50% of leaving certificate assessments. Assessments undertaken during the school year could be done under teacher supervision and sent to the SEC for assessment. This could, for example, include English and Irish essays as well as some of the questions on unseen aspects of the leaving certificate in other subjects. The subject syllabuses, or specifications as they are now called, could be modularised, as is now the norm in most higher education courses, with assessment carried out at the end of each module. Third level students have found this considerably less stressful than everything being examined at the end of the final year. Some assessments could take place at the end of fifth year and others could take place around the time of the Christmas tests in sixth year or at other times during the final year. There should be plenty of choice on the exam papers and not the narrow focus, and guessing game, that currently exists for many subjects. In my view, external assessment should be the norm. A student's own teacher should not normally be asked to assess his or her students for certification purposes. To conclude on that aspect of it, while we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater, we need to seriously rethink how the leaving certificate assesses, examines and certifies.

I have other points in my submission but I will move on to the final point on the current specifications.

Even though the Minister has not yet announced whether there will be the leaving certificate as we know it, the NCCA is going ahead with revising subjects in a new way and introducing new syllabi or specification, as has been mentioned. For example, the recently introduced specification for Irish at junior cycle is problematic and I have written about it previously. Some members may have read that. The proposal has been strongly criticised and opposed by Irish language organisations and Irish teachers. Even though the Minister has not announced her proposals, the NCCA is proceeding with revising the individual subject syllabi. There is considerable concern among subject organisations and teachers about the format or template being used by the NCCA to design the new subject specifications. While the design template may be suitable for school-based programmes or courses that are not externally assessed, it is not suitable for a programme or course that is externally assessed and a high-stakes examination such as the leaving certificate. The specifications are skeletal and lack clarity. They contain only themes and learning outcomes with no detail on the material to be taught, teaching approaches, literature, texts or assessment. There is no information about how the course content will be aligned with assessment to ensure national consistency and coherence. Under the Education Act 1998, the role of the council is to advise the Minister on both curriculum and assessment so I would argue that any change in curriculum should be accompanied by very clear guidelines and explanations of how it will be assessed. This current revision is an opportunity for the council to go back to the drawing board and look at assessment in light of the points I have made.

If we are talking about international evidence and best practice, I have examined the syllabi of 12 countries and jurisdictions, including the International Baccalaureate, to see if any other country provides such a skeletal outline for its individual subjects and have not found a single country where we are talking about a public examination externally assessed. I would argue that the NCCA should adopt international best practice and provide full information for teachers, students and, where appropriate, textbook producers, well in advance of the new specifications being introduced.