Junior Cycle
The Junior Cycle is the first stage of the education programme for post-primary education within the Republic of Ireland. It is overseen by the Department of Education and Youth and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, and its terminal examination, the Junior Certificate, by the State Examinations Commission.
New specifications and curriculum reforms saw the Junior Cycle replaced the original Junior Certificate programme. The revised curriculum was introduced on a gradual phased basis from 2014, and the process was completed in 2022. A Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement is issued to students who have successfully achieved a minimum standard in their Junior Cycle assessments and examinations.
A "recognised pupil" who commences the Junior Cycle must reach at least 12 years of age on 1 January of the school year of admission and must have completed primary education; the examination is normally taken after three years' study in a secondary school.
History
Intermediate Certificate
Intermediate Certificate : introduced in 1924; originally for pupils at voluntary secondary schools after 3 or 4 years of study.Group Certificate
Group, or Day Vocational, Certificate : introduced in 1947 for pupils at vocational schools after 2 years of studyThe syllabuses of the Group Cert and Inter Cert were coordinated from 1968.
Junior certificate history
The first Junior Certificate syllabus was introduced in 1989 and examined in 1992.Circular M16/89, Department of Education, Ireland, 1989 The new, modern Junior Certificate course was acclaimed as it was much more flexible than its predecessors. It quickly became the minimum requirement for getting a job in Ireland.Near the end of the 1990s, the Department of Education and Science began to replace many subject curricula, particularly those that were deemed dated, such as History and Geography. In 1999, Civic, Social, and Political Education was introduced as a subject and made mandatory from 2000, when Religious Education was also brought in. Religion was phased in with just a few schools adopting it in its first year, but now nearly all do the exam for Junior Cert, whilst CSPE was implemented nationwide.
In 2002 a new Science course was introduced, with emphasis on greater class participation and introduction of the awarding of a percentage of marks for class practicals throughout the three years. However, many teachers complained about a lack of information from the department about this change, and sample papers were not released until early 2006, the year when the new exam would be sat for the first time. Also, some schools complained that they did not have the laboratory facilities to do the new course but were forced to teach it anyway.
In 2004, results were made available on the Internet for the first time thus allowing students who, for instance, had moved school or left school to get their results without having to return to their old school. The lack of students taking higher level Maths has been a consistent issue throughout the history of the Junior Certificate. However, in recent years the percentage of taking higher level Maths has increased.
Transition to the modern Junior Cycle
Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Department of Education and Skills produced research and studies on what changes needed to be made to education in Ireland.In late 2009 the Government considered for a short period of time to completely scrap all Junior Cert examinations permanently. The move was met with criticism and outrage from the Teachers' Union, but the Government said that scrapping the annual examinations and replacing them with continuous assessment would save the country €30 million.
In 2011, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment published reports proposing a major reform of the Junior Cycle following consultations with stakeholders, and amid concern over the heavy emphasis on "teaching to the test" in secondary schools. However, by October 2012 Teachers Unions and educationalists criticised the proposal by former Minister for Education and Skills Ruairi Quinn to abolish state exams in the Junior Cycle and 100 percent assessment by teachers.
On 15 January 2014, the Department of Education and Skills announced that the new name for the Junior Certificate would be called the "Junior Cycle Student Award". After much delay and changes made to the framework by April 2014, teacher unions began industrial action, starting with the policy of non-cooperation with planning measures due to concerns in relation to impartially around correcting students assessments. The government agreed to not scrap the Junior Certificate and instead, introduce a brand new syllabus in English for students starting first year of secondary school in September 2014, with only 90% of the test going for a written exam. The other 10% was an assessment task taken during the third year. This was a reflection of the learning from the second classroom-based assessment.
By 2015; the finalized report 'Framework for Junior Cycle' was circulated by the Department of Education and Skills issued by the former Minister for Education Jan O'Sullivan. Education reform at post-primary was largely supported by all Government parties, despite political changes in government over the years; the largest political parties Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour continued to promote the framework issued by the NCCA. The 'Framework for Junior Cycle' provided a timeline of when the changes would occur over a gradual basis.
In 2016, pilots of the new system had been underway for three years, with the principal of St Joseph's College, Lucan, in particular noting that the "engagement in learning" proved to be a panacea for the school's discipline problems.
In 2017, English became the first subject to be issued with the new grading system. Science and Business were then reformed in 2016; Irish, Mathematics and French in 2017; History and Geography in 2019. The full Junior Certificate was revised into the Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement in 2022.
Junior Certificate
The Junior Certificate or "Junior Cert" for short, is an educational qualification awarded in Ireland by the Department of Education and Youth to students who have successfully completed the junior cycle of secondary education and achieved a minimum standard in their Junior Certificate Examination.A student takes up to ten subjects – including English, Irish and Mathematics – as part of the Junior Cycle. The examination does not reach the standards for college or university entrance; instead, a school leaver in Ireland will typically take the Leaving Certificate examination two or three years after completion of the Junior Certificate to reach that standard.
The objective of the Junior Cycle is:
The Examination
The final examination takes place after three years of the course, in early June. The exams always start with English, then the other core subjects and finish with the subjects that have the fewest candidates. They usually last two and a half weeks. The exams can take the form of written papers, aural exams or practical exams. Exams normally range from one and a half to two hours long.Schools with students taking the examinations will have one or more examination centres, and almost always at least two, because the Leaving Certificate and Junior Certificate examinations cannot take place in the same centre. Smaller centres can be used for students with reasonable accommodations because of a learning or writing difficulty. Each exam centre is supervised by an external superintendent, usually a teacher from another school or an employee of the SEC. A staff member of the school is hired as an examination aide by the SEC to act as a liaison between the SEC and the school officials during the examination period. Candidates may not enter the exam centre after the first 30 minutes and are permitted to leave the centre after 30 minutes have passed, up until the last 15 minutes of the examination, although this practice has been abolished in some schools, and is discouraged in many others.
The Irish Times published an article where teachers expressed their concern that some syllabi for certain subjects were not "up-to-date" with current events and would therefore not encourage students enough to think independently and apply theory to real-world scenarios.
Levels
At the Junior Certificate, students can take an examination subject at one of three levels. These are:- Higher Level – available only in English, Irish and Mathematics.
- Ordinary Level – available only in English, Irish and Mathematics.
- Common Level – available in all subjects except English, Irish and Mathematics.