3rd February 2021
The long overdue announcement by the Minister for Education, Peter Weir, in relation to awarding arrangements for public examinations for summer 2021, lacks the required detail for teachers as they strive to deliver for their students.
INTO are calling for clear guidance in respect to the level and type of evidence that will be accepted and a light touch approach to internal moderation to be adopted.
Kevin Daly, INTO Trade Union Official said:
“What is clear from the Minister’s statement is that it stops short of the proposals put forward by this union for external assessments to be provided and marked by trained examiners which would have more closely replicated normal practice.
In the absence of this external assistance being made available, it follows that requiring teachers to collate, assess and moderate evidence in order to provide a grade will result in additional work for already hard-pressed staff. Teachers must have time made available to them to take part in the necessary training for these new arrangements and to carry out the work involved in producing the Centre Determined Grades.”
Mr Daly continued:
“INTO calls on the Minister to provide additional funding for the provision of substitute teachers to avoid further loss to teaching and learning while those tasked with producing and assessing evidence endeavour to implement the requirements of CCEA and DE.
It is important that the Minister leads in communicating to parents and the wider community that the grades produced will be determined collectively through processes carried out in schools and colleges and that he makes crystal clear that the end product of this process will be ‘Centre Determined Grades’ and not solely ‘Teacher Judgement’’.’