After leaving primary education at the age of 12, children in Ireland begin secondary school. The first three years are known as the Junior Cycle, culminating with the Junior Certificate (Ireland’s equivalent to GCSEs) at the end of their compulsory education. From children aged 15 to 18, there is the Senior Cycle, which begins with the optional first year: the Transition Year.
Unlike the rest of the Irish education system, the Transition Year is free from formal exams or rigid timetables. There is no curriculum except for core subjects – Irish, English, Maths, PE – and the possibilities beyond that are endless: from folklore to theatre to aviation, nothing is off the table. This is not a year in which every last detail of what gets studied is prescribed in a syllabus. Instead, it provides an opportunity for students to pursue a range of experiences, as parents and teachers combine forces to allow for valuable life skills to be learned and new passions to be discovered.
Those who opt out of the Transition Year go directly into the two-year Senior Cycle, graduating school a year earlier than their peers. Although an extra year of school seems like it might not be popular with children, a survey done by Educational Research Centre found that about four out of five Transition Year students said they would recommend it to others in the future, having taken part themselves.
“So far this year, I have made a plethora of new friends and have joined more clubs than ever would’ve imagined,” says Shannon Kehoe, a student in Ireland currently in her Transition Year. “TY [Transition Year] also gives students the opportunity to experience working environments through work experience and helps students get a better idea of what they would like to do.”
As the Transition Year celebrates its 50th anniversary since its conception, the benefits are undeniable. The two-year Senior Cycle ends with the Leaving Certificate, for which the maximum score is 625. A study done by the Economic and Social Research Institute in 2005, revealed that students who took a Transition Year got an average of 40 points more than their peers.
The program also allows students to discover passions they might not have otherwise thought about. For BAFTA-winning Cillian Murphy, the Transition Year was what first introduced him to acting, as well as director Pat Kiernan, who later cast him in his breakthrough role.
The question remains therefore: is this a model that should be adopted in other countries? In South Korea, the Free Year Program fills a similar role as the Transition Year, although it is typically when students are 12-13 years old. Since its introduction in 2017, it has already garnered positive responses, although the long term effects are still to be seen. In an age of high student burnout and low attendance rates, should the UK be the next country to implement this system?
