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Should the Leaving Cert be abolished?
Opinion on the mania of stress, sleeping tablets and scores.
After coming through the Leaving Certificate and having had some time to reflect on the situation, I defiantly believe that the Leaving Cert should be abolished, along with the CAO points system.
Before I even entered sixth year, people gave me looks of sympathy and I thought they were completely over the top. But, now I’m donating the same looks to my friends about to undergo the exam system. Sixth year turned me into a zombie; I went to school with sleep on my mind and went to sleep with homework on my mind. And I wasn’t the only one. My mum used to joke that you could spot a Leaving Cert student a mile away by the bags under their eyes and the grey of their skin!
Let’s be honest, the only people who benefit from the Leaving Certificate are the makers of rescue remedy and sleeping tablets. During sixth year, anxiety and panic attacks are as common as lunchtime. A peaceful night’s sleep becomes a distant memory, a healthy appetite is replaced with a desire to sleep in your dinner and the effects on personal relationships are diabolical.
Aside from the physical effects, the Leaving Cert doesn’t measure brainpower, understanding and intelligence but rather memory. The Leaving Cert is a game of learning off sample answers and re-writing them in a two to three hour exam.
Ask students about any English poet and they can tell you every fact they learned about them. But, give them an unknown poem and ask them to find the same level of detail in it and the majority won’t be able to. We weren’t taught how to analyse poetry; we were taught how to answer exam questions, which for many Leaving Certificate students is a useless skill as they will never sit another exam in their lives.
We students are NOT stupid, so stop insulting our intelligence. Give us something that will appeal to our creative and innovative side. Teach us skills we will use. As much as we look down on schools from the past, at least they taught skills like sewing as opposed to Pythagoras which we will never use again. Teach us communication skills, how to tap into our creativity, even how to raise a family.
Leaving Cert students are not sheltered from a bad personal life. Even the student destined for 600 points can be knocked off course by a death in the family or a personal problem. How can anyone expect someone to bury a loved one, then somehow manage to bring themselves back to French?
Also, each career requires different skills from a person. To be a doctor you may need to be extremely intelligent, but also compassionate and empathetic. To be a TV presenter, you might be outgoing and eccentric. The Leaving Cert doesn’t consider this; it allows a student to compete for a college place in a career they may not be suited to.
I don’t think that a little exam stress is a problem. At the end of the day, life isn’t plain sailing, but the Leaving Cert exceeds all acceptable boundaries. The decisions made in sixth year are so important that they shouldn’t be squeezed into study breaks.
We really need a new and more modern exam system!
By: Claire Finnegan
