education and skills report
Education at a crossroads Ireland boasts more third-level graduates than the EU average, but the Oireachtas has been told that second-level education is not equipping students for the future. With the immediate threat to the sector of Covid-19 still looming, Irish education finds itself at a pivotal crossroads. ‘Bold’ action is needed to halt the failure of the Leaving Certificate to prepare Irish students for the challenges of the future, the Oireachtas’ Joint Committee on Education has been told. Emer Smyth of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) told the committee that the focus on exams in the Irish education system is having a “significant negative effect” on both teaching and learning. “The exam-focused approach is seen by students, parents and teachers as leading to rote learning, with a focus on memorising material at the expense of authentic understanding and a neglect of the development and assessment of broader skills,” Smyth said. “Exam marking schemes have become a key driver of student engagement in exam preparation. Levels of stress tend to escalate in sixth year with students finding their schoolwork even more difficult. Many students, especially female students, report feelings of strain and loss of confidence in sixth year.”
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Smyth was speaking to committee as it considered submissions around the topic of Leaving Cert reform, a topic that has defined Irish second-level education for over a decade now, culminating in the first of the modern Leaving Cert reform measures in 2012, when maximum points achievable were increased from 600 to 625. In its current form, the Leaving Cert is having a “pernicious” impact on the learning and lives of young people, Anne Looney of Dublin City University told the committee, with Tom Collins of Maynooth University adding that it was “stacked against poorer students and less well-resourced schools”. Speaking on the challenge facing those working to reform second-level education, chairperson of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs Tony Donohoe told the committee: “We’re trying to prepare young people, who will still be in the workplace in 2070, 2075, so it’s impossible to predict. It is not a precise science. Who would have predicted the pandemic, for example, and its impact on digital skills?”
