Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYIntroductionWhether to have a comprehensive schooling system or to providedifferent tracks or curricular programmes has been a central focus ofinternational policy debates on second-level education. The LeavingCertificate Applied (LCA) was introduced in 1995 as an alternative to theestablished Leaving Certificate and was designed as a distinct self-containedpre-vocational programme for senior cycle students. Its fundamental goal isto prepare students for the transition from the world of education to thatof adult and working life (DES/NCCA, 2004), including further education(DES, z1995). Little is known about the process of curriculumdifferentiation in an Irish setting and in particular the characteristics ofyoung people who opt for the LCA programme. This study provides aunique opportunity to examine student experiences prior to entering theLCA, their curriculum and learning experiences during the programme, andtheir post-school outcomes. Adopting a mixed methods approach, thisstudy uses data from a range of sources including the School Leavers’Survey and the Post-Primary Longitudinal Survey in addition to in-depthqualitative interviews with young people who had participated in LCA. Thecontribution of both quantitative and qualitative research strategiesprovides greater insight into the views of LCA students and theirexperiences of the programme.Curriculum differentiation and the process of tracking or sortingstudents according to ‘ability’ has been a main focus of educationalresearch internationally. Existing analyses of such tracking generallyemploys one of two competing theories: human capital theory and socialreproduction theory. Human capital theory views vocational education asan investment in young people in preparation for the labour market or as asafety-net which retains ‘at risk’ young people within the educationalsystem and enhances their later employment opportunities. In contrast,theories of social reproduction view the provision of a differentiatedcurriculum as a system which socialises working-class people intosubordinate roles and reproduces social inequalities across generations.Approaches to curriculum differentiation vary internationally accordingto a number of factors, including the age at which students are placed indiffering ability tracks, the strength of linkages between vocationaleducation and the labour market, and whether programmes providestudents with occupationally specific skills or generic work-related skills.Countries such as Austria and Germany track students at a young age intoprogrammes which often have strong employer linkages and specificvocational skills training. In contrast, other educational systems (includingCanada, Japan, Norway, Sweden, England and the US) tend not to trackstudents until senior cycle level and provide more generic workplace skills.Ireland is considered to have an intermediate position in terms of having amix of both academic and vocational curriculum (Iannelli and Raffe 2007)XIII