Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Updated at 10.43pm
WITH JUST A week to go until next Tuesday’s planned strike by secondary teachers, it appears neither side is backing down.
Teaching unions, the ASTI and the TUI, insisted in a joint statement this evening that their action would go ahead as planned next week.
And they rejected suggestions from the Education Minister that they had been unwilling to compromise on their demands on Junior Cycle reform.
Earlier, Minister Jan O’Sullivan said there was “a fair and reasonable offer on the table in relation to Junior Cycle reform”.
“I have moved a significant distance to address the legitimate concerns of education partners while still maintaining the integrity of Junior Cycle reform,” O’Sullivan insisted.
I have demonstrated the willingness to compromise to bring about an agreement, unfortunately to date the union side has steadfastly failed to move.
The two sides have been at an impasse since the unions rejected compromises put forward by O’Sullivan earlier this month, saying the ‘internal assessment’ model proposed would not be workable.
Under the Minister’s revised plan, teachers would still have to assess 40 per cent of a student’s work in awarding a grade, but a third-year exam would still account for 60 per cent of a grade.
“It is misleading for the Minister to state that the unions have ‘steadfastly failed to move’,” ASTI President Philip Irwin said in the unions’ statement.
We have supported a move away from a single terminal exam and the inclusion of portfolios and project work etc.
“In addition, teachers have implemented a wide range of changes to the Junior Cycle curriculum over the last 10 years, and will continue to do so.”
Meanwhile, TUI President Gerry Quinn insisted:
Despite the Minister’s decision to change the original proposals, the introduction of 40 per cent school based assessment would compromise the credibility and transparency of the examinations process.
“A system of teachers assessing their own students for state exam purposes will significantly change the relationship between the teacher and student.”
The unions’ joint statement concluded:
Twenty-seven thousand teachers who are members of the ASTI and the TUI will engage in a one day strike on Tuesday, December 2. A further strike day will take place in January 2015, a date to be decided.
Additional reporting: Daragh Brophy.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
also , I don’t think it should be called ” bettering ” their exams results , it’s questioning their results to make sure they were graded properly .
Suzie, of course people are appealing to better their result. If they thought that the examiner had been generous to them do you really think they’d appeal in order for the exam to be “graded properly”?
sloop ,yes to better their result because the students believe they did better than the results they were given so therefore appeal , but if it had been graded properly in the first place then they wouldn’t have to appeal .
But its not called bettering?
Agreed Suzie, but, not wishing to sound pedantic, the article is about the results of the appeals not why the students had to appeal. Having said that, the fact that there were so many appeals raises serious questions which need to be answered
so nearly a fifth of results appealed were wrong? that’s quite startling
Over 25% of Biology was upgraded. What a poor marking performance. And let’s not forget those marking Biology were the ones teaching it too…. scary.
25% of appealed results were upgraded, appealed results are not an accurate sample of exam papers, it is in fact a very small percentage of total papers.
25% of Biology was upgraded ? – where are you getting that figure from ? 245 out of 25,596 is not 25%……..
Now if you said 25% of those appealed, that would be different………..
well they don’t generally upgrade non appealed papers now do they. Think about it for a while…. 25% of all appealed Biology papers were upgraded. They are a representation of both the standard of marking a teaching.
I understand that S ReiIIy, but I think some thought should be put into reviewing a broader sample of appealed and unappealed papers to investigate what the actual % is, given that the percentage of appealed is so high.
How can so many results be wrong? Will the teacher that gave these wrong results be marking next year?
Course they will. You can’t punish anyone in this country
Except non public or state and semi state workers. we’re fair game.
2000 wrong out of almost 390,000 is a pretty good result. Don’t forget that for many exams what is right and what is wrong can be a matter of opinion.
1,822 upgraded yet only 3 downgraded, I somehow find it hard to believe that so many were marked mistakenly in one direction only.
There’s always going to be more upgrades as you would generally only appeal a result if you think you should have been marked higher after viewing the script yourself, and often with a teacher. If you thought you were lucky to get what you got surely you’d leave well enough alone and not appeal it?
I never knew there was an exam on One Direction Pat? If there was I’m sure a lot of teenagers scored well on it !!!
Lot of good it does for students who may have missed out on a college place due to erroneously marked papers when the term started 6 weeks ago for most colleges. Shocking number of papers marked incorrectly too it seems.
Is 1 in 200 really “shocking”? Bear in mind that many papers have a lot of wiggle room for answers to be “right” or “wrong”. Take Economics for example, one I got checked. For one question on the advantages of Foreign Direct Investment one could say:
Increases Employment
Increases State Revenue through Taxtion
Decreases Social Welfare Spend
Increases Consumer Spending
Decreases State Healthcare costs.
You could get anywhere between 5 and 30 on that answer, depending on the corrector and marking scheme. Some will come along and consider them all separate valid points, another could say that they are all spins on the same answer.
@David Hanlon. I agree that the results have come out too late. However, if you look you will see that the highest number of exams that were marked wrongly apply to Ag Science and that was 1.8%. The total on average is 0.47%. That means that 99.53% of all papers were deemed to have been marked correctly. These figures refer to the overall number of exams corrected and not to the appeals.
6 weeks is far too long to have to wait for the appeal results.
All college places have to be postponed till next year now.
It’s very important for students waiting for appeals to accept a relevant course this year so that it might count for the original course they wanted eg taking science while your hoping for medicine
Them percentages are all wrong
Did my leaving this year and failed business was shocked when I seen this so decided to view my papers , when I seen I got 38% I walked out of the room, it was the most frustrating thing ever since I did 9 months of grinds for 6th year luckily enough I got a course I’m enjoying but 2% off a pass is horrible to see
what about the junior cert appeals when can we get the statistics on those?!
have your say