Is there a change a-coming?

Youth Voice: The Leaving Cert's a real relic of an exam.

The Leaving Cert. As a nation, it’s probably the closest thing we have to a national rite of passage. It’s been around since the 1920s, (yes, the 20s!) and really, it hasn’t changed much since then. It’s a real relic of an exam, and though it might have been the fairest way of testing students in the past, times have changed, but the Leaving Cert hasn’t.

One of the Department of Education’s favourite past-times is to hint that the Leaving Cert will be changed in the near future. And one of the favourite past-times of teachers and pupils is to believe them. I sat the Leaving in 2003, and in the run-up, there were whispers that a ‘change’ was being introduced that year. As is the case with a lot of rumours, there was some truth. A change WAS introduced. Guess what? They added 20 minutes to the duration of some exams…that was just what the doctor ordered; all I wanted was to sit there for an extra 20 minutes.

This is a typical example of some of the ‘changes’ to the Leaving in the past; they’ve been small adjustments, tinkering around the edges, hardly what you’d call ‘revolutionary’.

What they tell you is true. Unless you go on to study something really crazy and far-out there man (I’m looking at you, medicine and astrophysics students), the Leaving probably will be the hardest exam you’ll ever sit, not because you have to have every last brain cell firing (I spent a lot of time daydreaming in those exams!), but because you’re expected to get 2 or 3 years worth of education in a certain subject down on paper in 2 or 3 hours. And keep doing this over 2 or 3 weeks across 6, 7, 8 or more subjects. Is it any wonder Leaving Cert students go on the beer big time afterwards?!

Whenever a discussion on Leaving Cert reform starts up, the one thing that’s always mentioned is continuous assessment. Basically, that means that instead of sitting in a big drafty hall and writing everything down in an essay in 3 hours flat, all the work, the mini-exams, the research projects you do during the year are graded and included, along with the exam, in your final result.

That means not everything depends on the one exam in June, and the result you get is likely going to be a more accurate average grade. Not to mention the de-stressing side effects. Continuous assessment is a favourite in third level, I’ve had continuous assessment subjects with NO exams at the end of the year, and did it ever feel good!

For the immediate future though, even though assessment does work, is definitely fairer, and a lot less nerve-racking, I’m afraid that those of you who’ve just gotten into Leaving Cert year will probably have to sit pretty much the same exam that I did, that your older brothers and sisters did, and perhaps very similar to the exam that your parents did.

And if in ten years from now, you get around to writing a piece like this, maybe, just maybe, you’ll not end up saying the same thing!

By: Andrew Gibbons