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The association representing agricultural science teachers has said that current plans for the new course cannot be carried out due to COVID-19.
Other subjects have had changes made to their curriculum and the Irish Agricultural Science Teachers’ Association (IASTA) says its subject must receive the same consideration, including the removal of mandatory experiments.
“We, the teachers, and our students have lost, on average, 15% of the teaching year due to COVID-19, therefore we are calling for a wide variety of questions in the Leaving Certificate to allow for the strong possibility that some topics may not be covered due to loss of class time,” IASTA said.
We have we called for changes to be made to our new course work. All have fallen on deaf ears. In any year the roll out of new course is stressful but the added pressure of Covid19 changes are needed @NormaFoleyTD1 @NCCAie @Education_Ire pic.twitter.com/8CJC7HX9t4
— iasta (@AgScience) August 21, 2020
They also said that teachers were “in the dark” in regard to what the exam paper would look like as it was the first year of the new course and called for sample papers to be released as soon as possible.
IASTA said their main concern was the Individual Investigative Study (IIS).
“COVID-19 has resulted in many students not being able to collect data for their IIS due to the lockdown and lack of access to farms, laboratories and school resources,” they said.
“We are now seeking a meeting with NCCA, State Examinations Commission and the Department of Education due to lack of engagement with IASTA, a key stakeholder in formulating the changes to this year’s curriculum.”
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