The Leaving Cert is a "cruel" process that is "out of step" with education in Ireland, the head of Ireland’s national association for principals has warned.

The Class of 2023 will learn their Leaving Cert fate this Friday with results due out at 10am.

In 2019, the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) carried out a survey which asked students if they felt the Leaving Cert fairly assessed their abilities – with 96% of students saying it did not.

Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, NAPD Director Paul Crone said the Leaving Cert is a "cruel" process for students across the county.

"I have to be fair to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment and State Examinations Commission, who have significantly moved and were introducing other components into the assessment of the Leaving Cert," he said.

"But, this senior cycle curriculum at the moment is out of step with the preschool curriculum, the primary school curriculum [and] the junior cycle."

Senior Cycle

Mr Crone said the senior cycle curriculum expects students to reject the way they have been taught to learn in previous years.

"We go into senior cycle, which is in preparation for the Leaving Cert, and students are basically told, 'Forget the way you've been learning before, forget about autonomous learning, forget about skills development'," he said.

"'Now, take out your exam papers, we're preparing for the exam' – and that needs to change.

"We need to increase our assessment methodologies to take account of student's interests, aptitudes and abilities."

'Three digit number'

Mr Crone said schools need to move away from seeing the Leaving Certificate as a "three-digit number".

"[It's] the culmination of 14 years of study, and people would say how did you do with the Leaving Cert? I got 600, I got 425," he said.

"It's less about the results and I think more about pathways.

"Students want to have confidence as to where they can go following the Leaving Cert."

'Buy-in'

Mr Crone said it is important to get a "universal buy-in" from teachers' unions, students and those in the Department of Education.

"We haven't really had that national discussion," he said.

"The Government had promised The Citizens Assembly in the current programme for Government and we need to insist that we prepare for that.

"We need to do what's right for our students. We need to do what's right for our system.

"We can deal with all of [the] speed bumps or impediments along the way, but we can't not start on this process.

"When we decide on what's the correct policy, we can work [it] out.

"When our vision is correct, the actions will become clearer for us and we'll be able to circumvent all of the impediments."