Teachers not up to it?

For Maths in the LC I had an atrocious teacher, because I did not perform as well as I should have. The teacher completely lacked motivation and was poor at explaining thing, to the point of me explaining some questions to him. I don't know if this teacher was always bad at his job or was just sick of it. I think if teachers had more supports this would be less likely to happen. On the other hand the maths teacher had for the JC was brilliant, my poor performance in that instance was due to a lack of self study.

Kids are stupider. All the information in the history of the world literally in their pockets on their phones and they still don't know who Anne Frank is or what Chechnya is. Teachers have some task ahead of them.

From what I remember when I was in secondary (about 8 years ago), the stuff you need to learn for higher (and even ordinary) level Irish is just... it's absurd. You need to either have an immense interest in it (as in trying to embrace yourself in it 24/7) or else be lucky and end up in an Irish school like myself.
Even then they treat it like it's bloody English. You've got your short stories, poems, book to read, etc. It's not learning it for the sake of learning, it's learning it for the sake of rote learning.

Maths just seemed to have thrown too much at me. I ended up ordinary level, though. AFAIK, the only kids who did reasonably well (say a B or better) at higher level were three... one of whom's older brother was a math teacher himself for secondary and the other two got grinds.

I don't think its the students or teachers that are the issue as a whole. Just the amount of material in maths and secondly, the fact that they treat Irish like it's English (like it's your most commonly spoken language) is the problem.

The Department of Education is poor. The inspectorate are poor. Ruairi Quinn is poor. The funding is dire. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing in terms of newly "required" assessment/ planning. Even the payroll department are bloody useless and can't even get teachers on the correct scale. I would like a report on that useless overpaid git of a minister and his cronies. Smoke and mirrors. Blame the teachers. How original.