Junior Certificate

The first Junior Certificate syllabus was introduced in 1989 and examined in 1992.[5] It replaced two earlier examinations:

Intermediate Certificate ("Inter Cert")

introduced in 1924; originally for pupils at voluntary secondary schools (often boarding schools) after 3 or 4 years of study[6]

Group, or Day Vocational, Certificate ("Group Cert", or "Day Cert")

introduced in 1947 for pupils at vocational schools after 2 years of study[7]

The syllabuses of the Group Cert and Inter Cert were coordinated from 1968.[8]

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.

A typical exam hall.

Near the end of the decade, the Department of Education and Science began to replace many subject curricula, particularly those that were 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. The new course emphasised greater class participation and introduced 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. 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 honours Maths has been a consistent issue throughout the history of the Junior Certificate. However, in recent years the trend of taking honours Maths has increased positively.[9]

Some Junior Certificate course books

The Junior Cycle is the first three years of second-level education. In the final year of the course, teachers allocate a substantial amount of time for revision of key topics. Candidates also practice answering questions which appeared on previous examination papers. Courses are quite broad – for example, the Business Studies course covers business organisation, marketing, economics, accounting and several other areas. The same is also true of the Science course, which covers basic physics, chemistry and biology. The Leaving Certificate exam, by comparison, is much more specific.

A "recognised junior pupil"[4] must undertake all the mandatory subjects and at least two of the optional subjects, except insofar as exemptions or exclusions apply. In certain types of schools, subjects in the optional grouping (or a selection from combinations of them) may, in fact, be mandatory, for instance, History and Geography are mandatory in certain types of schools.[10] Most schools do not offer all the optional subjects but must offer all the mandatory and certain optional subjects.

Each subject is examined at one of three levels, Higher Level (informally Honours), Ordinary Level (informally Pass), or Foundation Level. Foundation Level may only be taken in two subjects: Irish and Mathematics. All other subjects may be taken at either Ordinary or Higher Level. In general, a Higher Level grade is worth 40 points more than the equivalent Ordinary Level grade (e.g. a Higher C1 is 70 points, while an Ordinary C1 is 30). No points are awarded for a grade below D3 (40%). However, a D3 may be awarded with a tolerance of up to 2%; a practice in place since the introduction of the grading system in 1969.[4]

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 (which are usually included at the start of the written paper), practical exams (for example, in Music, 25% of the final result is based on a performance and skills test in front of an examiner) and marks from course work assignments (such as in CSPE, where 60% of the exam rests on an action project completed during the school year). Exams normally range from two to two and a half hours long; most subjects are one paper only (i.e. they are taken in a single session), however, three subjects have two papers at higher level – Irish and Mathematics. Until 2017, the English and business studies examination also had two papers at higher level.

Schools with students taking the examinations will have one or more examination centres (individual enclosed rooms in which examinations take place), 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 invigilator, 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 (e.g. Business Studies) 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.[13]

Grading

Grading is split into seven ranges.

A mark below 10% receives no grade. Above this, there are six ranges of 15%, from F up to A. Grades A, B, C and D are passing grades, E and F are failing grades; therefore, the pass mark for the Junior Cert is 40%.

In late 2009 the Irish 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 (ASTI), but the Government said that scrapping the annual examinations and replacing them with continuous assessment would save the country €30 million.

However, later on, 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% is an assessment task taken during third year. This is a reflection of the learning from the second Classroom-based Assessment (CBA). The first CBA takes place at the end of 2nd Year, which is an oral presentation. Students have 3 weeks to choose a topic and have to present it. The second CBA takes place at Christmas of 3rd Year. It is called the Collection of Texts in which a student will choose 4 written pieces throughout the 3 years from 4 different genres and will re-draft them. The CBA are graded using word descriptors and appear alongside the find grade on the Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement. The final written exam at higher and ordinary levels now only consists of a two-hour paper.

Pilots of the new system have 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.[19]

Schools started the new course September 2014, as soon as the Junior Certificate Examinations were abolished with the aim of a soft transition. English was reformed in 2014, Science and Business were reformed in 2016 and Irish, Mathematics and French were reformed in 2017. History and Geography will be reformed in 2019. It is expected that the full Junior Cert will be revised into the Junior Cycle Student Award by 2022.

On 15 January 2014, the Department of Education and Skills announced that the new name for the Junior Certificate will be called the "Junior Cycle Student Award".[20]

• Education in the Republic of Ireland
• Irish Leaving Certificate
• Junior Cycle Student Award

• State Examinations Commission
• 2016 Junior Cert Exam Timetable