What happens to a student who refuses to do a subject?

Lord TSC

Ok, so on another board, I've been having a debate with someone about the nature of compulsory Irish. After disproving his theory that if you don't want to do Irish, you can simply opt not to do it, he's proposed then that a student can simply refuse and the school is powerless to do anything about it. His last comment was as follows...

Show me anything, anything at all that sets out what will be done if a student refuses to study Irish.

Show me a case of anything being done to a student that refuses to study Irish.

Irish is compulsory, that in its self dosent mean that the school can force someone who refuses to study Irish to study it.

Hypothetical situation.

Student point blank refuses to study Irish, School contacts parents and the parents side with the student.

What next? What can the school do to force the student to study Irish?

I don't have the experience to give a full and accurate answer so thought I would throw the question up here to see what you knowledgable people think. Not trying to drag the debate over onto this forum; just genuinely interested, both for the nature of the debate and also for personal knowledge should the matter ever actually arise for me in the future.

J.Ball

Your sort of right and wrong they cant force you to do irish but you would still have to do the exam so you would get a fail grade which is worse then not doing the subject. Most companys and college dont require irish anymore anyway so wouldnt be the end of the world really to not have it

Rosita

Why would you have to do an exam? How can someone be forced to do an exam?

I certainly had a guy in my own Leaving Cert class who didn't do Irish 'because he was from Dublin' (reminds me of the actor Shane Richie - a Londoner - saying on BBC on FA Cup Final day that he supported Manchester United 'because my family are from Dublin') and nobody seemed terribly put out about it.

There are students I know who cannot even be forced to come to school so I doubt they can be forced to do any particular subject. The problem for a school is what do you do with them during those classes? That's the only real practical issue with a core subject I would say.

However, there is some logical difficulty with the following statement: Irish is compulsory, that in its self dosent mean that the school can force someone who refuses to study Irish to study it.

If a subject is compulsory then by definition it should be possible to force someone to do it or punish them for not doing it so that they are in effect forced to do it. Does the Dept of Ed do any of this - not that I know of anyway.

Compulsory is a very attractive word because it's dramatic but I'm not sure it's entirely accurate, in the same way that it was profoundly disingenuous of Enda Kenny to say that Maths is not compulsory (as distinct from Irish) when he would be hard pressed to find a student in the country not sitting it under some guise or other.

It is funny how in school it is the utter wasters who want to do absolute squat in any subject who are most excited about Enda Kenny's recent vote-catcher. If he told them that school itself was optional he'd be even more of a hero.

J.Ball

Didnt say forced of course you cant be forced to do an exam but it is a core subject so would have to jump through hoops to officially get out of the subject. Like i said very very few places require irish anymore so fail away people i know have and it didnt effect tbem at all once you pass maths and english there the major important ones

cloneslad

My school didn't force us to do Irish, you could simply not do it if you didn't want to.

Irish is not compulsory in most ITs as you only need to have passed one language (be it Irish or English) and Math to be eligible for their courses.

Many of my friends didn't do Irish, in fact I stopped doing it in 4th year but decided to do the leaving cert exam a couple of weeks before the Aurals.

Out of the people that didn't do Irish, all bar one went to third level education, studying Engineering, Architectural technology, design and a few other things too.

I actually interviewed Mary hanafin when she was Minister for education and she told me that Irish should always be compulsory as it is now. I told her it wasn't complusory to get to College as many of my friends opted out of it and I had just been to see one of them a few hours prior to it in his design room in DIT Bolton st.

I think that irish may be compulsory for the school to do it but it is not compulsory to get into a 3rd level course (except the NUI courses - who actually accepted me for a masters despite my lowly D1 in ordinary level but that's neither here nor there as my 2nd level education didn't come into the equation).

I'm not sure if my school just couldn't be bothered with the hassle of trying to get the students to do the subject when they clearly didn't want to do it but they hid this fact, or if it's not compulsory at all. Either way, it's not needed for most 3rd level courses anyway.

seriouslysweet

There is a guy in my class who has refused to do it, he's kind of the type who refuses anything he HAS to do though so is no surprise really.

Rosita

cloneslad wrote: »

I actually interviewed Mary hanafin when she was Minister for education and she told me that Irish should always be compulsory as it is now. I told her it wasn't complusory to get to College as many of my friends opted out of it and I had just been to see one of them a few hours prior to it in his design room in DIT Bolton st.

This is missing the point. The question here is compulsory nature within the second-level system. What colleges/universities do in terms of their own admission policies is a separate matter.

But it is compulsory for schools to offer the subject no more than that really. In practice students cannot be forced to do it no more than you can really force them to bring their English book to class or to not fart in class or to do homework. You can have rules and regulations but teachers quickly find out how meaningless they are.

I saw a student leaving the school grounds yesterday at 12.40pm even though it is supposedly compulsory for him to remain in the school until 1 o'clock when they get lunch. Do you think the likes of him gave a monkey's about what the school says is compulsory in its rules? Unfortunately all conversation in education seems to revolve around college entry and ignores wasters like that guy. But they are there in large numbers and the only thing they will ever be forced to do is draw the dole.

cloneslad

Rosita wrote: »

This is missing the point. The question here is compulsory nature within the second-level system. What colleges/universities do in terms of their own admission policies is a separate matter.

But it is compulsory for schools to offer the subject no more than that really. In practice students cannot be forced to do it no more than you can really force them to bring their English book to class or to not fart in class or to do homework. You can have rules and regulations but teachers quickly find out how meaningless they are.

I saw a student leaving the school grounds yesterday at 12.40pm even though it is supposedly compulsory for him to remain in the school until 1 o'clock when they get lunch. Do you think the likes of him gave a monkey's about what the school says is compulsory in its rules? Unfortunately all conversation in education seems to revolve around college entry and ignores wasters like that guy. But they are there in large numbers and the only thing they will ever be forced to do is draw the dole.

Yes, but she said it was compuslory to do it, when it is not. If it was compulsory to do it then my friends would have been compelled to study it, they weren't though.

I think tarring people as wasters because they feel they should concentrate on other subjects rather than spending so much time on one they are stuggling with or suggesting that not doing a subject involves drawing the dole is a bit much.

I know you were calling that one specific kid a waster and may not have been intentionally calling everybody one, but it's still a bit over the top because he was leaving 20 minutes before he was supposed to.

One of my mates didn't study irish, I went to college, he decided against it. I graduated while he was working in a bar in Dublin having travelled around the world for the previous 4 years trying to figure out what to do. I then went to Korea to teach English and came back and did a masters degree then went back to Korea. My friend never bothered with 3rd level education.

He did however discover what he wanted to do and he qualified as a pilot, has a job with a top airline and collects more money than any of my friends that studied Irish or went to college, including me. So, I think you're right about the whole education focusing on college thing. I do think providing students with an education to set them up for life rather than a 3/4 year degree course would be much better, but I suppose that's a whole other topic.

Rosita

cloneslad wrote: »

I know you were calling that one specific kid a waster and may not have been intentionally calling everybody one, but it's still a bit over the top because he was leaving 20 minutes before he was supposed to.

This shows naivete that could only be shown in one of these abstract discussions on the internet. You think I called the poor little mite that because he got a bit confused over the time? The guy in question has a back-catalogue of very poor behaviour as long as your arm. Give me some credit will you?

cloneslad

Rosita wrote: »

This shows naivete that could only be shown in one of these abstract discussions on the internet. You think I called the poor little mite that because he got a bit confused over the time? The guy in question has a back-catalogue of very poor behaviour as long as your arm. Give me some credit will you?

I'd give you more credit had you not called a young kid a 'waster'. I'd have thought you'd have more respect for students and kids.

Lord TSC

I'll be honest and say I don't fancy getting into a debate over what should and should not be compulsory. That wasn't why I made this topic since there's a near 3,000 post topic over on the politics board discussing that matter.

More, it was to discuss what to do with a kid who refuses to study something which is deemed compulsory by the school and, in the case of Irish, by the department of education. What can you do with a kid who opts not to work in a class despite actually being enrolled in that class. Sadly, the answer seems to be...

You can have rules and regulations but teachers quickly find out how meaningless they are.

Rosita

cloneslad wrote: »

I'd give you more credit had you not called a young kid a 'waster'. I'd have thought you'd have more respect for students and kids.

I'll just have to take the hit on the credit side then but I'm not going to spout some conveniently PC nonsense about people like that who offer nothing to a school except disruption, violence and disaffection despite getting huge support and incredible toleration of their behaviour.

As far as I am concerned respect is something that you don't get free with your cornflakes. It is a subjective personal feeling which is earned. I tend not to respect people who spit at me and pause for a sneer for the benefit of the rest of the class when walking behind my back.

If you expect me to have any respect - never mind more - for someone like that you must be joking.

I would love to put someone like you in front of the like of him for a week and then talk see you tell me what I should think about him.

blogga

Interesting qu about Irish. Assume they do not have official exemption. I think that the school will not get capitation grant for that student. I think he will not count towards teacher allocation. Essentially then a burden on the school and the other students. School could, arguably, seek reimbursement from parents for loss of grant and seek financial contribution proportionally for loss of teaching allocation. The board could consider that the student was a threat to the discipline of the institution. In short, theres a lot the school could do. But would it?

Fizzical

cloneslad wrote: »

I'd give you more credit had you not called a young kid a 'waster'. I'd have thought you'd have more respect for students and kids.

Why call him a young kid when you have no idea what age he is or how much of a 'kid'?

Wasters don't drop out of the sky fully fledged at age 18.