After a year-and-a-half that could be best described as the “perfect storm” for Leaving Certificate agricultural science students, they have been praised for their resilience and hard work.
Tomorrow (Friday, September 3), over 60,000 people across the country will collect their 2021 Leaving Cert and Leaving Cert Applied results.
This year, candidates were able to opt to sit their exams, to receive accredited grades, or both on a subject-by-subject basis.
Those who have sat exams only will be provided with exam results; those who have opted for accredited grades only will be provided with accredited grades; and those who have opted for both will be provided with the better result between the two processes.
Around 60% of over 8,000 students who took agricultural science as a Leaving Cert subject this year chose the option of both the written exam and accredited grade, and will receive the better of the results.
Around 1% chose to only sit the exam, while just less than 40% chose to receive an accredited grade only.
‘Perfect storm’ for Leaving Cert students
Johnny Gleeson, PRO of the Irish Agricultural Science Teachers’ Association (IASTA) has wished all those receiving results the best of luck.
“It was a tough two years. If it doesn’t go well for someone on the day, there’s always other ways of getting to where they want to,” he said.
This year, the new agricultural science syllabus was examined for the first time. Since its introduction in 2019, teachers have experienced significant challenges with it, according to the IASTA.
Between that and the Covid-19 pandemic, it was a “perfect storm” for students.
Gleeson said that teachers are looking forward to seeing both the results and the marking scheme that come from the exam, as they will “learn a lot” about what needs to be taught going forward.
Exam was a ‘mixed bag’
Reflecting on June’s exam, Gleeson said that students had a “vast amount of choice in the paper; they were looked after in that regard”.
“The question might be raised that with the paper itself, there were a lot of pages and a lot of material on sustainability in the exam – so I don’t know how that matches up with printing massive exam papers,” he said.
He also said there were specific topics examined – such as virtual fencing – that weren’t “all incumbent of Irish agriculture” but, overall, it was a “mixed bag”.
“I would say with the new course it is a great base to have to go on and study agriculture [at third level]. Students are engaging well with it, and when they’re going on to study something related in college, they’re well ahead of the game than years gone by,” he continued.
“On the other hand, while the student going on studying agriculture will have a greater knowledge, the ones that aren’t are just taking it because they like the idea of it and they could struggle with how vague the learning outcomes are and such.
“But we hope that it won’t be the case that numbers will drop.”
No longer the ‘poor cousin’
Over the years, the number of those doing agricultural science has increased; with Gleeson saying that “there’s more students taking it than physics”.
“It’s not looked at as the poor cousin anymore,” he said.
“The new course now has that scientific basis there in it – there’s a lot of maths, a lot of data collecting, so it couldn’t be more scientific.”
Gleeson said that while they got the last cohort through, it was “by no means easy”, particularly due to the pandemic.
He said that having returned to the classroom in recent days, there’s a “big difference” compared to last year.
“Students adapted very well you must say. Hopefully they might get out to a farm for a farm visit at some stage soon. There’s light at the end of the tunnel,” he added.