Subjects will be broken down into modules, allowing students to sit exams in the different segments over a three-year period. Students who fail will be able to repeat one segment rather than the entire subject.
The reforms, which are being finalised by the national curriculum body, have been backed by Noel Dempsey, the education minister.
Dempsey said the changes would help reduce the drop-out rate from secondary schools — currently 20% — which he blamed on the financial pressures facing students from disadvantaged homes. He said this would only change if “you incentivise study for some people”.
The education minister ruled out paying students to go to school but said a new rolling Leaving Cert would give students flexibility to hold part-time jobs. In England and Wales, students aged 16 and above are to be paid up to £30 €45) a week to complete second-level study.
“I don’t think we are going to go down the route of paying students to go to school. I don’t think that is a realistic option for us,” said Dempsey. “But what would be equally valuable is if you structured your Leaving Cert course in such a way that those who want or need to get out to earn a few bob could be facilitated by prolonging it and structuring the Leaving Cert in modules.”
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The minister also backed new proposals aimed at easing entry into medicine. In an interview with The Sunday Times, he said Irish society would be better served if there were a broader mix entering “the professions”.
Pupils taking the Leaving Certificate examination as presently structured spend two years studying the entire syllabus. In English, for example, their work is tested in two examination papers taken on a single day in their final year. Under the modular approach, however, students could study poetry in one term, sitting an exam paper at Christmas, and take prose in the next term with another exam at Easter. If a student got a poor result in poetry, but scored well on prose and other modules, they could have the option of repeating only the poetry module in a subsequent year instead of the whole exam, said Dempsey.
The new Leaving Certificate curriculum is expected to value skills such as critical thinking, working with others, communication and information processing.
He said: “I am not saying that any of this would be easy and that you could just transfer overnight — that is why the National Council for Curriculum Assessment is talking in terms of this as the Leaving Cert we want to see in 2010. You have to leave a lead-in time for that.
“The Leaving Cert as it is, it’s a high-stakes examination, there is no question. I believe there are ways of lessening that pressure, and lessening the intensity of the pressure.”
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Last year, the minister said he wanted to remove medicine and other health sciences from the points system and, instead, introduce a common science degree to pave the way to graduate-level medical studies.
He set up a committee, chaired by Professor Pat Fottrell of NUI Galway, to chart the future of medical education.
Dempsey confirmed that he will bring proposals to cabinet in early autumn backing the recommendations of the Fottrell group on access to third-level medical studies.
“The terrible pressure on young people who are interested in doing medicine is that this is one shot in a Leaving Cert,” he said.
“You are talking about getting almost perfect scores in that.”
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Fottrell’s report, which is due on Dempsey’s desk shortly, backs the move away from an exclusively points-based system of entry to medical studies.
Instead, the group proposes a two-stream entry process. Students attaining 450 points in the Leaving Cert would qualify to sit a medical aptitude test, and the scores from that test would determine the successful candidates for medical studies. A separate stream of entry would be open to honours graduates.
Dempsey’s approach has been welcomed by the post-primary wing of the National Parents’ Council (NPC). Eleanor Petrie, the NPC president, said parents were very supportive of the modular approach to the Leaving Cert.“We would welcome anything that eases the tension and stress of this terminal exam where everything hinges on your performance during the last fortnight of your school career,” she said.