Is the leaving cert system adequate

steddyeddy

I saw a great letter in todays Irish times that brought it all back to me. Its by a student who is sitting the leaving this year. Shes under extreme pressure and is quite stressed. Should the leaving cert be changed or is it ok as is? I personally think it could and should be changed. Its not a good way to determine who gets into college imho and it doesnt prepare people for college imho. Anyway Ive included a poll and heres the letter from the times.

Sir, – Some say the world will end in 2013, I say it will end on June 6th, 2012 – at least it feels that way.
I am a Leaving Cert student and I have never been under so much pressure or stress in my whole life. Srá pictuirí, project maths, the poetry conundrum: Kinsella or Plath? And that’s only the start of it. I found the time to write this letter solely because it comes under my English revision. In sixth year, there are not enough hours in the day for the amount of stuff to be done, many students are juggling seven or eight subjects and trying to cram everything into one final year of hell. But why does the Irish education system do this to young people?
It’s all about points and entry requirements, the real concept of learning has been lost in translation and that is such a pity. Everything has to be learned off by heart in the hope that you’ll somehow be able to regurgitate and vomit it out on to the paper on the day of the exam.
I know I’m not alone in this suffering and stress, as thousands of fellow students will sit their Leaving Cert this year and thousands upon thousands before us have done so. But that’s what puzzles me most. Many people will agree that the points system is a farce, yet we do nothing to change it. You just get through it as best you can and then forget about it, leaving second-level students in the future subject to its pressures; an unjust account of one’s true ability, where it more or less depends on how you perform on the day. A system of continuous assessment, similar to those of Northern Ireland or Finland, would be much fairer and would prevent this anxiety-provoking milestone in young Irish people’s lives.
The Leaving Cert is a marathon. At the end of it you are left hoping that you’ll get by in this points race and – to put bluntly – not have to repeat this torture next year. – Yours, etc,

Pushtrak

Invisible poll?

Edit: Because people are still responding to this, it wasn't there when I first came in to the thread. Duh.

steddyeddy

Pushtrak wrote: »

Invisible poll?

Added now mate!

Ghandee

Pushtrak wrote: »

Invisible poll?

need new spectacles?

steddyeddy

Ghandee wrote: »

need new spectacles?

Ah in fairness it was my fault I started the thread before adding the poll!

Diego Maradona

Where's the invisible poll?

jimthemental

If she's this stressed over a few exams she has had a couple of years to study then she's going to love college when because of projects you have at max 2 clean weeks to study.

Superbus

It's not that bad if you choose your subjects correctly and work sensibly. But I'm saying that as someone who hasn't actually done the exams yet (English Paper 1 on Wednesday morning, eep), so I really know nothing in all likelihood.

Well as someone who had stuff happen outside of school just before one exam, I can say it should be more continuous assessment. One bad day can have too much of an effect on your results.

Pushtrak

Superbus wrote: »

It's not that bad if you choose your subjects correctly and work sensibly.

I don't think the current system is the best in terms of the subjects/points et cetera. How one gets on in any subject that is related to the course they want to get in to should have a higher priority for points than other subjects. With this view, any business related subjects would get more than the standard if looking for a business related course than say, geography, biology and so on.

Where To

Just as we suffered years ago so should our children suffer now.

Diego Maradona

Diego Maradona wrote: »

Where's the invisible poll?

If you could see it, it wouldn't be invisible, but trust me it's there.

Rocket19

I've never understood the whole "the leaving cert is the most stressful thing you will ever experience in life" thing...!

I did it three years ago (so not THAT long ago), and somehow I managed to survive. In my school, we had to stay in 'til 8pm doing study (with breaks obviously, but it was still hardcore), come in to study on weekends, during 'holidays', etc.
Yes, it was stressful, and yes it's a heavy curriculum, but it's not that bloody hard! If you can't handle the leaving cert, you sure as hell won't handle college, never mind the work environment. I think that somehow we've made it acceptable for people to say "oh poor such-such, she's doing the leaving cert", and "it's the hardest exam of your life". Having experienced college, I just don't think it is.

I'm reasonably academic, and I realise for some students, it just doesn't come as easy, but it's only as stressful as you make it for yourself. To be honest, if you work hard (and that doesn't have to mean 10 hours of daily study), you WILL do well. It's a very repetitive course, very predictable. There were people in my year probably less "smart" than me, who achieved better results simply because they worked harder. 2 years is plenty of time, especially considering the entire cruriculum is very "exam-based" these days.

Think it was Yeats that said "education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire". That's what education should be, and admittedly, that certainly doesn't describe the leaving. As I mentioned, it's very exam based, insular, repetitive. It's not "fresh", and I doubt it has been for a long time. That said, compared to other countries, it's a relatively well-rounded curriculum, and in my opinion, the fact that's it's not overly "career-orientated" is not a bad thing (like the English system). Kids shouldn't be forced into a particular degree just because they happened to take a particular school subject at the age of 16. There'll always be flaws!

oppenheimer1

Dear LC student,

Pressure and stress are part and parcel of real life. Deal with it.

byhookorbycrook

It's not a good system, but it is objective.

BazDel

I did the leaving cert last year and I believe it's grand as it is. A few things could be changed but a drastic overhaul is not necessary in my opinion. Continuous assessment would not be a viable alternative.

I don't buy the whole 'we should change it because it puts too much pressure on people' argument. Pressure is everywhere and working with it shows mental toughness. It only gets to you if you let it! If you put the work in during the 2/3 years you will have no problems. That means doing the homework you are given and trying your best for in-house exams.

The only exception would be people looking for very high points for medicine etc. as they need to do near perfect.

Eathrin

I don't get this pressure and stress students seem to be under after studying a relatively short course for a whole year. A year!
I'm sitting my Leaving Cert beginning on Wednesday and I honestly haven't studied a bit. Not once have I sat down after school or on the weekends to revise material and yet I'm confident enough I can get 500+ points due to whatever work we've done during class time.

But that's one of my talents, I didn't stress myself out because I failed to make the school running team, I accept that other people are better.
The system is there to sort students based on their academic ability. What needs to be done is implement a system where students are not rewarded for learning off huge amounts of material.

Rocket19

Rocket19 wrote: »

I've never understood the whole "the leaving cert is the most stressful thing you will ever experience in life" thing...!

I did it three years ago (so not THAT long ago), and somehow I managed to survive. In my school, we had to stay in 'til 8pm doing study (with breaks obviously, but it was still hardcore), come in to study on weekends, during 'holidays', etc.
Yes, it was stressful, and yes it's a heavy curriculum, but it's not that bloody hard! If you can't handle the leaving cert, you sure as hell won't handle college, never mind the work environment. I think that somehow we've made it acceptable for people to say "oh poor such-such, she's doing the leaving cert", and "it's the hardest exam of your life". Having experienced college, I just don't think it is.

I'm reasonably academic, and I realise for some students, it just doesn't come as easy, but it's only as stressful as you make it for yourself. To be honest, if you work hard (and that doesn't have to mean 10 hours of daily study), you WILL do well. It's a very repetitive course, very predictable. There were people in my year probably less "smart" than me, who achieved better results simply because they worked harder. 2 years is plenty of time, especially considering the entire cruriculum is very "exam-based" these days.

Think it was Yeats that said "education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire". That's what education should be, and admittedly, that certainly doesn't describe the leaving. As I mentioned, it's very exam based, insular, repetitive. It's not "fresh", and I doubt it has been for a long time. That said, compared to other countries, it's a relatively well-rounded curriculum, and in my opinion, the fact that's it's not overly "career-orientated" is not a bad thing (like the English system). Kids shouldn't be forced into a particular degree just because they happened to take a particular school subject at the age of 16. There'll always be flaws!

I find this a very self centered and blinkered view I have to say.

Mr Benevolent

The stress is caused by students believing the hype about the consequences of getting less than 1000 points.

Rocket19

Sacramento wrote: »

I find this a very self centered and blinkered view I have to say.

Really? How so?

Kylo Ren

I'm in favor of a more 'Battle Royal' system to determine who gets to go to College. Each school would transform their buildings to cater for a full on war. It could be monetarily beneficial through sponsorship's and live televised events.

If they keep dumbing down the curriculum it certainly will need some overhaul
How much of that old physics course did they end up throwing out 10 years ago? Get rid of calculus and matrices in project maths...? That well known essay by a student on being an individual getting nearly full marks in English...?

dfx-

It should be overhauled and made harder or should that be more spontaneous.

Richard Hillman

dfx- wrote: »

It should be overhauled and made harder or should that be more spontaneous.

Was just about to post something in relation to this. In the vast majority of cases the students are taught to pass the test. They are not actually learning about the respective subjects. You could well get an Honours A1 in a language and not be able to hold a solid conversation if you visited the country of origin.

skinny90

It was a piece of piss,very predictable

whatdoicare

It's a very weird system not in tune with individuals at all - while I agree in theory about continual assessment, in reality, I always did really poorly on average when it was done and a lot better in an annual exam while my friend never did well in exams because she would blank on the day even though she was far more intelligent than I was and probably would have done alot better if the exams were continual!

My long term memory is terrible while my short term memory is almost photographic - the only way I was able to do very well in an exam was to push it into my brain in the short few hours before the exam, otherwise I had to learn and adapt ways to trick the system into thinking I knew the information - soon after the exam the knowledge I learned was pushed out to make room for the next lot of information I needed to force in.

I actually managed to learn a way in languages to answer all the questions, speak my piece during the oral and write essays without learning or understanding any of the language. I was exceptionally good at this and managed to gain a B1 in honors French and an B3 in honors Irish without being able to speak a single word of either language.

Obviously on paper I am proficient in both and technically I could go to France and start speaking to the locals without encountering any problems but in reality I couldn't read a menu last time I was in France.

I can speak a great deal of Spanish though not because I studied it in school but because my husband speaks Spanish as a hobby and I made the effort to speak it with him for my own amusement.

In other subjects I relied on my great talent for turning tiny pieces of solid information into paragraphs and pages and learned all the diagrams that I could. This always gained me a lot of points in a test as it gave the illusion that I knew and understood the subject.

While I thought myself clever beyond measure at the time and gained all the point and more for the college place I needed - I realise that the whole six years of my secondary education was a complete waste of time and energy.

The only thing I learned was a very handy life skill of working around my short comings - not many people I know realise that I can't remember anything I learned a week ago if it's not enforced daily. Oh well....:pac:

tommyboy2222

I think the problem with the Leaving Cert is that a lot of it consists of learning things off by heart on then regurgitating it onto the answer sheet.

It doesn't really incorporate problem solving which is an important skill to learn.

Also getting 6 a1's in your LC doesn't mean you are suited to a career in medicine !!

Rocket19

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Was just about to post something in relation to this. In the vast majority of cases the students are taught to pass the test. They are not actually learning about the respective subjects. You could well get an Honours A1 in a language and not be able to hold a solid conversation if you visited the country of origin.

I'd agree with this.
I had a very good Irish teacher, but only good in terms of getting the best exam result.
We were made put a lot of work in, even had classes BEFORE school doing "Peig" on a Wednesday morning (bleh!). I actually got a B1 in Higher Irish, but even though I only did the leaving 3 years ago, I honestly couldn't hold a decent conversation in Irish. Unless you wanna talk about "m'áit conaithe" or "an coras sláinte". I could probably still recite "Sliocht 1" or whatever, too.

I don't buy this "poor stressed students" thing. How're you gonna cope with a hardcore university course if THIS stresses you out?
Kids are utterly trained and solely equipped for the leaving cert. THAT'S the problem, but how could you blame students/teachers for doing it? It's not the stress, it's the fundamental approach to education that needs to be overhauled.

Dudess

Third level is more difficult but I still found the exams less of an ordeal than the leaving cert - because third level was interesting, leaving cert was painfully dull.

FloatingVoter

Bullet points and diagrams are the secret to success for the exam ace. Actually succeeding in the real world, well...nah...you'll figure that out yourselves.

delta_bravo

tommyboy2222 wrote: »

Also getting 6 a1's in your LC doesn't mean you are suited to a career in medicine !!

Thats not the job of the leaving cert. Thats up to the candidate to figure out for themselves.