Students may in the future be awarded leaving certificate points for completing accredited work experience or apprenticeships, the Irish Times reported today.
A proposal in a draft plan for reforms of the leaving certificate proposes that students could complete foundation apprenticeships or modules in vocational courses in local further education colleges.
Sources told the Irish Times that the report aims to move the leaving certificate away from being an entrance exam to third-level, and bring broader skills and vocational options under the system’s umbrella.
The courses and apprenticeships would have the same weight as ordinary subjects and points earned could go toward entry into third-level.
Head of Solas Andrew Brownlee told the Irish Times: “International approaches suggest a potential role for further education and training in offering modules and tasters of vocational courses to second-level students where existing teaching resources do not have the required technical experience available.”
This year has been an unsteady one for leaving certificate students.
In May, the government announced that this year’s leaving certificate exams would not take place and that students would be given the option to receive calculated grades or sit their exams at a later date.
The calculated grades were awarded to students on the basis of a number of factors – such as class rankings, students’ performance in previous assessments and other indicators.
Leaving certificate results shot up as a result under the new calculated grades system compared to last year.
Compulsory subjects all saw bumps in the number of highest grades awarded. In Irish, the the number of H1s this year went up from 6.1 per cent last year to 9.1 per cent. H1s in English increased from 3 per cent to 4.3 per cent, and H1s awarded in mathematics increased 2 per cent from 6.4 per cent to 8.4 per cent.
Due to a coding error, however, thousands of students were awarded incorrect grades, leading the government to offer students a place in a course they originally missed out on, if their new grades met the requirements for that course.
In a press statement, Minister for Education Norma Foley said: “I want to say how sorry I am that this has happened. My immediate priority is to fix the errors and their consequences so that students get their correct grades.”
