On the withdrawal of the Paper 1 Plan
A sigh of relief could be heard around the country this morning: English (and Irish) teachers sitting at their breakfast tables heard the news that the Minister of Education has ‘deferred’ her extraordinary personal plan to butcher the nature of the Leaving Certificate course next year.
Coffee cups were raised in gratitude to those who have campaigned against that, especially our subject association INOTE. I wrote vigorously against the proposal in March 2022, and produced an update on January 24th this year, following which (just 8 days ago!) there was kite-flying about a yet more bizarre idea which was obviously a desperate last-minute attempt to rescue the plan: that kite flew off into the sun to its destruction very quickly.
We heard the news from RTÉ, the Irish Times and other media outlets. As usual, journalists like Emma O’Kelly and Carl O’Brien (no aspersions on their professionalism - fair play to them) hear before schools, teachers, students, parents. This kind of disrespectful leaking from the Department of Education seems embedded into the system, being at its most obvious and egregious during the pandemic. With high irony, the only announcement in recent times that I can recall that was not leaked in advance was … the one in March 2022 about Paper 1.
Later today came an online missive from the Minister (in other Government Departments like Health, Justice and Finance, Ministers are often interviewed and quizzed about their decisions). Before the section on the headline-grabbing abandonment of the central proposal, you have to wade through Chat GPT-material on the new Senior Cycle Redevelopment Programme Delivery Board, the Chair of which will be … the originator of the notorious phrase an ‘early win’ (which cheekily adorned the back cover of the 2022 INOTE magazine).
This is supposedly a ‘deferral’ but the famous dogs in the street know it will now be impossible to return to an idea rooted in intellectual poverty and riddled with practical problems. The press release states that
My officials and I have engaged with student representatives, teachers’ unions, parents’ representatives and subject teacher organisations over the last number of months to understand their concerns about this change.
It is difficult for teachers to bite their tongues since the original proposal was announced without any engagement with the subject associations, who almost had to beg for meetings. And if it took months to understand the concerns…
Then there is an extraordinary brand-new justification, like a child who has discovered a hithert0-undiscovered and potentially convincing excuse for not handing in their work:
Key concerns outlined included that, given the significant disruption that students who will enter fifth year this September have experienced to their education as a result of the pandemic, this change should be deferred rather than being implemented in the coming school year.
And the press release repeats the fallacy that the proposal would have dealt with student stress by ‘spreading the assessment load’: in fact it would have increased it, and damaged both school life and individual student well-being.
Finally and amazingly:
Over the next few months I and my officials will examine further when and how to implement this change in light of the concerns that have been highlighted.
Educational reform is always complex, and rarely turns out as planned (I have written about the problems with Junior Cycle reform). A recent paper in the Journal of Educational Administration and History by Craig Skerritt of the Manchester Institute of Education, Manchester University, forensically examines the well-known document ‘Looking at Our School 2022: a quality framework’. Skerritt writes:
To speak of ‘implementation’ is to speak of policy in ways that are too linear and rational, as if a policy can simply be applied, optimally, by all involved, as well as consistently, in a straightforward manner. There is little room for manoeuvre, or agency, in this sense. Such a conceptualisation of policy reduces people to reductive technicians. (page 3)
Skerritt also makes several scathing remarks about the lack of critical discussion and open debate in policy formulation in Ireland, where relationships are often too amiable and agreeable. If you can get a copy of the paper, turn to page 10 for a highly pertinent and current example of this, given the Paper 1 controversy.
Last week I listened to the Mind the Gap podcast interview of Professor Dylan Wiliam by Tom Sherrington and Emma Turner. Among the many wise things about education he says there is this:
Lawrence Stenhouse memorably said in the 1970s that most reforms treat teachers like intellectual navvies, who are told where to dig but not why.
If the Senior Cycle is reformed successfully, it will be because there is a different attitude to reform compared to the last 12 months, based on evidence, intellectual depth and respect. It will not work if it is merely a top-down administrative response to the conveniences of an assessment and qualification system. The year has been a tiring one for English and Irish teachers, in some ways wasting precious time over an evidently foolish proposal which has now properly been withdrawn. However, there is a silver lining: the experience has made even more clear exactly what matters in our subjects and how they should be assessed. We are not here to be told where to dig. We are here because we love what we teach, and this morning we were able to celebrate with relief that we can continue doing that in the ways we know best.
