Junior Cert set for overhaul
Education Minister Ruairi Quinn is set to unveil a radical overhaul of the Junior Cert today.
It has been reported that Minister Quinn will scrap the State examination format in favour of a system which will see teachers continually assessing their own students over three years, and marking their exams at the end of the cycle.
Calls have been made in the past to get rid of "rote-learning" and "curriculum overload" for students and to encourage "creativity and innovation".
The head of teachers union the ASTI Pat King said that he hopes the details of today's plan will see more attention paid to maths and science at Junior Cert level.
"We're concerned that what's happening at the moment is students are being discouraged from pursuing science because of the cutbacks and the cuts in teachers in schools," he said.
"In fact, numbers taking senior science, chemistry and physics, are actually dropping, which goes against everything that we need in education at the moment."
