The dumbed-down Leaving Cert

professore

Permabear wrote: »

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This is insane. Back in the 80s many graduate jobs said "2.1 or better" and in Ireland that equated to maybe the top 25% - 30% of graduates, at least in STEM. Now it would be the "top" 90%

peckerhead

Gebgbegb wrote: »

Has it was the universities who pushed for the change and had the most say given their depth of knowledge.

judeboy101 wrote: »

Ironic given that UL were/are the major backers of project maths. They made a fortune by running pdst courses In maths

That push for change came from management/administrators, not academic staff.

judeboy101

professore wrote: »

This is insane. Back in the 80s many graduate jobs said "2.1 or better" and in Ireland that equated to maybe the top 25% - 30% of graduates, at least in STEM. Now it would be the "top" 90%

Grade inflation is linked to university underfunding and fees, just look at the insanity of A-levels results today.

Permabear

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Inspector Coptoor

Permabear wrote: »

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I don't disagree with your points.

As a teacher, I am hugely against the new Junior Cert for a lot of reasons, main one being that the number of hours science should be taught drops from 240 hours over 3 years to 200 hours and a large number of topics have been taken off the curriculum.

I don't like the narrative out there that all students should be "thinking critically" all the time.

One doesn't just start to think critically. One needs to build up a bank of knowledge to then be able to compare and contrast.

The "learning by discovery" fad bugs me as well.
If we put fifteen 14 year olds into a room for a few hours, would they come up with the Theorem of Pythagarus all by themselves?
One of the key points in academic work is giving credit to other people's work, i.e. Referencing.
Sometimes we need to say that the likes of Newton and Einstein carried out ground breaking work and we just need teach students what they figured out.

A Teacher can't be an all singing, all dancing "Guide by the Side" for a new curriculum loosely based on a Finnish model but funded in the same way as an English model of education.

I'm all for students working problems out for themselves either individually or in groups but it has to be structured and scaffolded in the right way.

Teachers are not against all reforms for the sake of it.
We are major stakeholders in Education policy in this country but we are being ignored and new smoke and mirrors curricula are being foisted upon us.
Then, when the sh1t hits the fan, we are the ones that get the blame for our "long holidays" and maybe if we taught for longer in the year the problem would go away.

Permabear

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peckerhead

Permabear wrote: »

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Let me add another interesting statistic into the mix.

Over 70% of undergraduate teaching in UCD — and probably in most of the universities — is now carried out by part-time staff. Many if not most of these are their own postgraduate students (awarded "assistantships" whereby they get fee waivers and a pittance of a stipend in return for 5/6 hours of teaching per week).

To get the 2.1 honours in order to qualify for admission to their postgraduate course, they only had to come within the "top" 90% of their undergraduate cohort.

I think you can see where this is going.

jackofalltrades

Permabear wrote: »

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Because that same person would have easily got points on an ordinary level paper.

Over 70% of students drop out of certain college courses" -- Irish Times

Says it all, really.

They really need to provide other avenues for students that aren't ready for college.
Who go because parents push them to or they want the experience or don't really know what they want to do.
I think an Irish version of the Peace Corp in the US would be a good idea.
Give people a year or two of maturing and learning life skills.

Are Am Eye

State education should finish at 15 years of age. Then two years max for third level. Make it illegal to do more than two years at college. School should offer very narrow specialised streams. None of this general rounded education nonsense.

How come society is not collapsing all around us if it all so bad? after all when the nurse teacher engineer or doctor or what ever graduates they will have to go to some place and do the job they have been educated to do, if the hypothesis of some of the posters here is correct surely civil society would be collapsing as those poorly educated graduates take up employment and cant do the jobs.

Grayson

Permabear wrote: »

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It's easier as a student though. I went to college in 1993 and then again a few years ago. The differences were amazing. Back then in your final year you did a dissertation. All your research was done by hand in a library. You read journals, books etc. You wrote it up by hand (keeping a check on the word count by counting the words on each page). You did multiple edits that way and then either typed it up or hired someone else to.

Now you have all these databases of Journals. You do keyword searches for articles. You can type it up and edit as you go along. There's thousands of guides on how to structure it and build it.

It's just a lot easier to do the work nowadays.

storker

KungPao wrote: »

If you ain't first, you're last.

I can see someone who might benefit from a dumbing-down of maths alright...

Iseedeadpixels

Grayson wrote: »

It's easier as a student though. I went to college in 1993 and then again a few years ago. The differences were amazing. Back then in your final year you did a dissertation. All your research was done by hand in a library. You read journals, books etc. You wrote it up by hand (keeping a check on the word count by counting the words on each page). You did multiple edits that way and then either typed it up or hired someone else to.

Now you have all these databases of Journals. You do keyword searches for articles. You can type it up and edit as you go along. There's thousands of guides on how to structure it and build it.

It's just a lot easier to do the work nowadays.

Hurry up and post 2 more times to get that glorious 10k posts :pac:

professore

mariaalice wrote: »

How come society is not collapsing all around us if it all so bad? after all when the nurse teacher engineer or doctor or what ever graduates they will have to go to some place and do the job they have been educated to do, if the hypothesis of some of the posters here is correct surely civil society would be collapsing as those poorly educated graduates take up employment and cant do the jobs.

I think you will find it is the plumbers, electricians, cleaners, etc that keep civil society going.

Also the blatant disregard for scientific thinking and having everything hinging on "feelings" where hurting someone's feelings is the worst possible crime, never mind that it isn't true, that seems to drive public debate in the media is another very worrying symptom. The obsession with celebrity culture. The breakdown of marriage and family life. These are all very bad omens.

judeboy101

Are Am Eye wrote: »

State education should finish at 15 years of age. Then two years max for third level. Make it illegal to do more than two years at college. School should offer very narrow specialised streams. None of this general rounded education nonsense.

One of the proudest things about Ireland is that we put no barrier on anyone getting to university, bar hard work.I've seen dirt poor lads get 600 PTA and doctors kids scrape 300. Everyone who does the leaving gets one of the Broadest educations anywhere. Go to any pub and you'll find fellas who can talk history, science, English lit or French passe compose. You'll find auld fellas who can dy/dx in their heads. We produce well rounded students we don't pigeonhole students at 15/16 like the rest of the western world.

judeboy101

judeboy101 wrote: »

One of the proudest things about Ireland is that we put no barrier on anyone getting to university, bar hard work.I've seen dirt poor lads get 600 PTA and doctors kids scrape 300. Everyone who does the leaving gets one of the Broadest educations anywhere. Go to any pub and you'll find fellas who can talk history, science, English lit or French passe compose. You'll find auld fellas who can dy/dx in their heads. We produce well rounded students we don't pigeonhole students at 15/16 like the rest of the western world.

I like that because it is so optimist I once had a random conversation with some one about Thomas Hardy and we were both able to have an opinion because we had done the book in school.

What to make of the Irish student on a J1 who didn't recognise the the Taoiseach, and then went on a radio program and told the world of this.

Permabear

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An tUasal C

Permabear wrote: »

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You say the poster's view is a bit off, and then continue onto your last point? :rolleyes: I can't remember the last time I encountered anyone who couldn't do simple multiplication.

Sam Kade

mariaalice wrote: »

I like that because it is so optimist I once had a random conversation with some one about Thomas Hardy and we were both able to have an opinion because we had done the book in school.

What to make of the Irish student on a J1 who didn't recognise the the Taoiseach, and then went on a radio program and told the world of this.

At what point did she recognise him?

JupiterKid

In 1993 I sat the Leaving and I always struggled with higher level maths, particularly equations, in secondary school. So in the start of 6th year I dropped to Ordinary level and got an A in the LC. In Trinity I did Geography as my main subject but via science, so I had to do a course called Mathematical methods in first year. I struggled at that and just about scraped a pass in my 1st year exams. By 3rd year I was doing pure Geography but we still did statistics as part of that which I found a lot easier.

There is no point in having students poorly prepared at maths entering 3rd level where the coursework is very challenging - it does them no favours. This is especially true for STEM courses that feed the Science/IT sectors that successive govts here boast about.

dublinman1990

Sam Kade wrote: »

At what point did she recognise him?

She did greet Leo at the restaurant and initially asked them if they were Irish. After a subsequent time at the restaurant; one of the girls colleagues mentioned to her afterwards that Leo was The Taoiseach. She said this to her after he was sitting at a small table outside the main dining area.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/are-you-irish-j1-student-left-redfaced-after-making-leo-varadkar-wait-for-table-36033323.html

peckerhead

An tUasal C wrote: »

:rolleyes: I can't remember the last time I encountered anyone who couldn't do simple multiplication.

I recently bought a bar of chocolate costing €1.29 and a 2l container of milk costing €1.49 at the local Centra while the till was spitting out its daily tot and therefore temporarily unavailable.

The 18-year-old behind the counter was absolutely incapable of working out the change from €5 without resorting to pen and paper. And even then it took him well over a minute, and he looked none too sure about it.

His proud mum told me the other day he got 508 points in his Leaving Cert. I didn't ask about his Maths result.

An tUasal C

peckerhead wrote: »

I recently bought a bar of chocolate costing €1.29 and a 2l container of milk costing €1.49 at the local Centra while the till was spitting out its daily tot and therefore temporarily unavailable.

The 18-year-old behind the counter was absolutely incapable of working out the change from €5 without resorting to pen and paper. And even then it took him well over a minute, and he looked none too sure about it.

His proud mum told me the other day he got 508 points in his Leaving Cert. I didn't ask about his Maths result.

Although I find it shocking he couldn't have worked that out in his head, my post referred to someone not knowing their 4 times tables, like the poster suggested.

peckerhead

I lecture to Arts students some of whom cannot correctly spell all the days of the week.

An tUasal C

peckerhead wrote: »

I lecture to students who cannot correctly spell all the days of the week.

Hardly a surprise, considering I've come across teachers who are unable to spell. American spelling seems to be becoming mainstream here too.

sunbeam

peckerhead wrote: »

I lecture to Arts students some of whom cannot correctly spell all the days of the week.

What proportion of them get firsts? When I did Arts back in the early 90s under 3 percent of our class achieved an overall first.

xckjoo

peckerhead wrote: »

I recently bought a bar of chocolate costing €1.29 and a 2l container of milk costing €1.49 at the local Centra while the till was spitting out its daily tot and therefore temporarily unavailable.

The 18-year-old behind the counter was absolutely incapable of working out the change from €5 without resorting to pen and paper. And even then it took him well over a minute, and he looked none too sure about it.

His proud mum told me the other day he got 508 points in his Leaving Cert. I didn't ask about his Maths result.

That's just lack of practice at working with cash and fear of getting it wrong. The subject is more contextual than anything. There's an old joke about the difference between engineers, physicists and mathematicians:

An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are staying in a hotel.
The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trash can from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed.
Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, etc. extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed.
Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. He goes to the hall, sees the fire and then the fire hose. He thinks for a moment and then exclaims, "Ah, a solution exists!" and then goes back to bed.

Permabear

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An tUasal C

Permabear wrote: »

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Is that down to intellectual ability or just plain laziness?

It's the same as people not spending five minutes learning to differentiate between "your" and "you're".

No matter where they're from, lazy people will be lazy.

Permabear

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mikhail

An tUasal C wrote: »

Is that down to intellectual ability or just plain laziness?

It's the same as people not spending five minutes learning to differentiate between "your" and "you're".

No matter where they're from, lazy people will be lazy.

There's that too. However, while it's no longer acceptable to say so, some people are actually stupid.

steddyeddy

Permabear wrote: »

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Tin foil hat stuff. When was all dumb down leaving cert policy decided?

hcass

mikhail wrote: »

There's that too. However, while it's no longer acceptable to say so, some people are actually stupid.

I actually don;t believe this at all - I work as a preschool teacher and I see kids at their earliest and most enthusiastic. They are all so absorbed in lessons - mostly because we take a different approach to learning and teaching to primary/secondary schools. These kids have so much potential - you can see it in them and it's heartbreaking to know that many of them won't reach it and through no fault of their own. Upbringing has a lot to do with it - family and financial status have a huge effect on children's success at school. Also, unfavourable teaching methods, undiagnosed learning difficulties and lack of supports will put children at a disadvantage before they even reach secondary.

pickarooney

mariaalice wrote: »

It is not boasting about the 'highly educated workforce" if it was as simple as that the IDA and by extension the government would soon be found out.

The roots of the obsessions with third level in Irish society are a legacy of a poor society and education being seen as the only way out of poverty, that is why primary school teaching had such an exalted position in Irish society and remained so long after the status of teaching has changed in other modern western societies.

But they're always telling us that Finland is the educational utopia where teachers are revered as demi gods

pickarooney

mariaalice wrote: »

That is the crux of the matter its the seeping of a kind of American culture that has no substance too it, the central tenets of it are there is no such thing as failure it just need to be turned around to a more positive view of the situation the big word is positive, its full of silly slogans expressed as reality my favourite is.

Turn a we can't in a we can!!

it almost become a cult.

I think wiccans are actually a cult

judeboy101

hcass wrote: »

I actually don;t believe this at all - I work as a preschool teacher and I see kids at their earliest and most enthusiastic. They are all so absorbed in lessons - mostly because we take a different approach to learning and teaching to primary/secondary schools. These kids have so much potential - you can see it in them and it's heartbreaking to know that many of them won't reach it and through no fault of their own. Upbringing has a lot to do with it - family and financial status have a huge effect on children's success at school. Also, unfavourable teaching methods, undiagnosed learning difficulties and lack of supports will put children at a disadvantage before they even reach secondary.

Isn't that the problem,when the feck did pre school become a thing. Back in the day you played at home minded by your mother and went to school at 5. Now kids are indoctrinated from 6months to school and curriculums. It's social engineering at its worst. No child should be let through the door of any school before 5, let them be kids at home. Our constitution recognises this fact when it gives the mother special status in the home.

Mardy Bum

pickarooney wrote: »

But they're always telling us that Finland is the educational utopia where teachers are revered as demi gods

Their education system has steadily disimproved since 2000 according to PISA results. They are no longer high fliers. Ireland is in the top 5 for literacy but nobody noticed that.

Behaviour is also a real issue in Finland mainly because of discovery learning.

judeboy101

Mardy Bum wrote: »

Their education system has steadily disimproved since 2000 according to PISA results. They are no longer high fliers. Ireland is in the top 5 for literacy but nobody noticed that.

Behaviour is also a real issue in Finland mainly because of discovery learning.

Finland was stick used to beat Irish maths teachers for a decade. Finland "weeds" out poor performers. A mono culture based on lutheran work ethic of conformity and collectivism. A perfect system to produce robots, but no suited to the Irish need to "rebel".

hcass

judeboy101 wrote: »

Isn't that the problem,when the feck did pre school become a thing. Back in the day you played at home minded by your mother and went to school at 5. Now kids are indoctrinated from 6months to school and curriculums. It's social engineering at its worst. No child should be let through the door of any school before 5, let them be kids at home. Our constitution recognises this fact when it gives the mother special status in the home.

Preschools do not have an academic curriculum - and many children who attend them play more there than they would at home where they might be more likely to be plonked in front of a television or tablet. They are there to play. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Aistear but it the early years curriculum framework and it is child led and play based.

And what I think You have completely overlooked is the fact that very few parents can afford to stay at home with their kids until they are five.

Mother special status in the home - seriously - how sexist it that? While I agree it's great for kids to be at home with a parent or parents, to actually say that a mother's place is to be at home with the kids is embarrassingly old fashioned. And children from disadvantaged backgrounds especially have been proven to benefit from preschool - especially when staff have graduate level training.

Permabear

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judeboy101

hcass wrote: »

Preschools do not have an academic curriculum - and many children who attend them play more there than they would at home where they might be more likely to be plonked in front of a television or tablet. They are there to play. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Aistear but it the early years curriculum framework and it is child led and play based.

And what I think You have completely overlooked is the fact that very few parents can afford to stay at home with their kids until they are five.

Mother special status in the home - seriously - how sexist it that? While I agree it's great for kids to be at home with a parent or parents, to actually say that a mother's place is to be at home with the kids is embarrassingly old fashioned. And children from disadvantaged backgrounds especially have been proven to benefit from preschool - especially when staff have graduate level training.

Never said academic curriculum, i said curriculum. curriculum = paper work=tracking=social engineering. What's wrong with recognising the best place for a child during its early years is with its mother. Doesn't the who say good feed til 3? I'd say our constitution is more pro mother than any other.

Permabear

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judeboy101

Permabear wrote: »

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Only thing true about your statement is the divorce, everything else was always societies decision, hence the reason none of the other issues you mentioned required a referendum.

mirrorwall14

I would argue that its not just the syllabus for Project Maths thats the issue. The problem is
A) Additional points for HL maths over other subjects
Marking Scheme Changes awarding partial credits
C) Awarding CAO points for 30%

A) and result in students (and parents) outright refusing to allow their student to move down. They sit in a class and take in incredibly little. They fail every single test in 5th Year/6th Year and become completely immune to failure. Then it comes around to June, the marking schemes give them marks for nothing, they pass at 30% and might even get an additional 25 points on top of it. Failure? Doesn't matter anymore clearly. Traditionally HL maths was too limited I will admit (I'm a maths teacher) and students avoided it even when they could probably have challenged themselves. Now however we've flipped the other way with massive classes and many students taking it who are never capable of passing the subject.

The fact that areas of the course are removed is actually irrelevant, its that these students just aren't capable of learning those areas after having sat in classes understanding/doing very little for the past two years. They can't do matrices and vectors in college because they didn't understand most of what came before it but made it through the LC because of the system changes.

Look at the percentage figures here
H8 2016 106 students failed
H7 2016 593 students failed
Total 699 students failed

H7 2017 1017 students (Not classed as a fail)
H8 2017 377 students failed
Below 40% total for comparison to last year 1394

Three times as many students got a H8 as last year. 50% increase in the students below 40%. But look at the headline. So despite the fact that far far more students fell below 40%, the headline is that there is a dramatic drop in failures? You couldn't make it up. And even if you compare like with like, H8 with H8, 28% more students got H8's than last year...


On top of that you have to take into account the changes to the marking schemes, which are extreme. In the past it was very clear, small numerical slip (-1), larger blunder (-3) with a minimum mark if you managed to do something of merit. Part (a) worth 10, part (b) worth 20, part (c) worth 20. Students had a decent idea how they were doing as they went and they knew if they were going off track.

Now there is no breakdown within the questions worth between 25-75 marks and no indication of how they are doing or where the marks will be awarded.

You also now have a system of Partial Credit, where provided you reach a certain point you get awarded a mark. Sounds fine? Yes it does. Except that because of the breakdowns, often a student who has made multiple mistakes is getting 1 or more marks than the previous system would have awarded for the same question.

E.g. Old System 10 marks (Marks awarded generally 10,7,4,3,0). New System example (Marks awarded 0,4,8,10) OR (0,5,10) OR (0,2,5,8,10)
The only one of those three that awards less or similar lower end marks is the last one. And that (based on last years paper) was applied about 3 times less than the first one. 13 times for the first where the student gets the extra mark, 3 times for the last where they lose 1 mark on last years P1. Replicate that across both papers and in different 5 mark or 15 mark questions and it adds up to massive grade inflation. And thats not even looking at the middle one where 5 marks or 50% is the minimum mark unless you've completely screwed it up.

To give you a simple image that everyone might understand from the JCHL This is a table, these are actually on the JCFL course too. Candidates need to add the values and fill it in. Don't get me started on the fact that this was awarded 15 marks (5% of the paper!) but look at what was required to pass the question, add three numbers.

Now those are the problems. But when we the teachers complained? Those teachers never stop moaning. They need to get with the times. They are so backward. Would they not just get on with it? Rabble rabble summer holidays etc etc.

seamus

I believe the main reason the Leaving Cert is allegedly getting "easier" is because it mostly relies on rote learning. Systems of study have been devised which effectively cheat the examination process - rather than testing your understanding of a subject and ability to put it into practice, exams test the student's ability to repeat the syllabus onto a page.

This is of course a symptom of a one-size-fits-all process which tries to apply the same test of English, Maths or Irish to 60,000 young adults. Trying to ascertain each of their actual understanding of the subject for that number of students is tough, bordering on impractical, hence the final exam becomes a box-ticking exercise for the examiner to make sure the core points of the syllabus have been regurgitated onto the page. If the examiners had to properly reflect on each paper presented to them, there's no way the process could be completed in 6-8 weeks.

We need to reform it. For a start, six years is far more time than is reasonably required to cover the material forthe leaving cert. The first two years in secondary school should go with the general junior cert format, the next two years should go with something closer to the leaving cert format, but with a freer choice of subjects.

By the end of the 4th year then, everyone is 16/17 and finished school. Those who want to progress to college can choose to specialise for two more years - like the A-levels. But this should be seen as an option, not the default route. We should emulate the German model for apprenticeships to provide more options than just college. There are so many real jobs that don't need a four-year degree but employers insist on them anyway because it proves that you did *something* after school.

This means that the exams for moving onto college can be a more thorough test of actual understanding. And it also means that money and time isn't pissed away doing a four-year arts degree in French and International Politics for someone who goes on to become an estate agent.

Permabear

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mirrorwall14

Permabear wrote: »

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Agreed. I do believe so. I loved vectors in second level and it stood to me in college. However I do also think the problem solving in Project Maths would also have stood to me. I hate the current marking scheme and paper format. I think it genuinely disadvantages the 80-100% student in favour of massively bumping the 20-50% group

Permabear

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bananabread12

The Department of Education must be abolished for the benefit of all society - it's destroying the young minds of our children.

xckjoo

Permabear wrote: »

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That doesn't really hold true for modern times. The age at which people produce significant scientific works is getting older due to the amount of knowledge they need to develop before being able to contribute.

https://www.livescience.com/16911-scientific-breakthroughs-genius-aging.html

If we want a good education system it has to reflect this trend. In this day and age it's more important to be able to look up and understand a topic (and filter out incorrect information) than it is to be able to retain encyclopedic levels of information. From the outside it looks like they're trying to do some of this with the Leaving Cert reforms but I'm not sure they're achieving the objective.