The process of tracking or sorting students according to ‘ability’ has been a central focus of international policy debates on secondary education. Education research generally views the process of placing young people into programmes according to their ability from two opposing perspectives; firstly that vocational or pre-vocational programmes provide a safety-net for young people who are at risk of leaving school early or academic underachievement, or the perspective which views the grouping of students as a way in which to channel working class students into subordinate roles and limit their educational opportunities.

Little is known about the process of curriculum differentiation in an Irish setting, in particular the experiences of students who participate in the Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA) programme. Introduced in 1995 the LCA is a distinct self-contained programme with a pre-vocational emphasis intended ‘to prepare students for the transition from school to adult and working life, including further education’ (DES 1995: 54). The majority of students in senior cycle take the Leaving Certificate Established or the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme which are mainly academic programmes incorporating a range of distinct subjects. The LCA differs significantly from these programmes in terms of structure, design, curriculum content, teaching methodologies and assessment and in its objectives to develop students’ understanding, self-esteem, self-knowledge and sense of responsibility.

Approaches to curriculum differentiation vary internationally. Countries such as Austria and Germany track students at a young age into programmes which often have strong employer linkages and specific vocational skills training. In contrast, other educational systems (including Canada, Japan, Norway, Sweden, England and the US) tend not to track students until senior cycle level and provide more generic workplace skills. Ireland is considered to have an intermediate position in terms of having a mix of both academic and vocational curriculum (Iannelli and Raffe, 2007) and the LCA programme can be considered as ‘pre-vocational’ with an emphasis on generic rather than specific skills.

This paper is the first study in Ireland to examine student experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied programme by analysing their entry into, participation in, and progression from the LCA programme. The primary focus is to assess if the option of the LCA in upper secondary school serves to reproduce social inequalities among students and acts as a diversion for students from reaching their potential or whether it improves some young people’s school experiences and provides a safety-net for those at risk of early school leaving. This paper provides a unique insight into the profile and characteristics of LCA students and analyses their decision to enter the programme. It investigates students’ learning experiences during LCA and the LCA’s mix of general and vocational curriculum, including work experience intended to prepare young people for adult and working life. Moreover, students’ post-school pathways into further study and/or labour market integration are examined and compared with students in other Leaving Certificate programmes.

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