John McHugh: Yes. It trains habits of independence, resilience, communication and problem-solving that matter long after exam season ends
The first Leaving Certificate examinations took place in 1926. Since then, the Leaving Certificate has remained an educational and cultural institution in this country.
While it is often treated as a rite of passage, it is also an effective preparation for adult life. Whether we like it or not, the Leaving Certificate is Ireland’s cornerstone credential. Its value goes beyond points and places because it trains habits of independence, resilience, communication and problem-solving that matter long after exam season ends.
Recent years have seen about 61,000 candidates sit the Leaving Certificate Established (LCE) and several thousand more complete the Leaving Certificate Applied (LCA), record or near-record participation in the State exams. The most significant increases were recorded this year for the Leaving Certificate Established, up 5 per cent when compared to 2024, and the Leaving Certificate Applied, which increased by 11 per cent.
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The LCA is not a lesser alternative, but rather a different and equally valuable pathway, highly suited to students whose strengths lie beyond conventional exam-based learning. While the vocational element of the LCA has been diminished in recent years the programme aims to respect individual learning styles, nurture practical competence and prepare young people for life, learning and work in the real world.
The focus on the Leaving Cert as a preparation for college entry rather than an evaluation of learning has undoubtedly been its defeat
One of the most compelling strengths of the Leaving Cert is the breadth of subjects students engage with. Typically, students sit seven subjects over two years, allowing them to explore a wide range of academic areas. A typical Leaving Cert mixes languages, maths, a science, a humanity and an elective. By contrast, A-levels in the UK tend to be much more specialised with students focusing on just three or four subjects in depth. The broader Leaving Cert curriculum means students can find a subject that plays to their strengths and helps them to develop a well-rounded knowledge base, something essential in an increasingly interdisciplinary world.
The wide range of subjects fosters curiosity, adaptability, and resilience – traits highly valued in further education and workplaces and helps to keep options open in the modern world. Leaving Cert students make choices which reflect their evolving sense of self as they approach adulthood and begin to orientate themselves towards life beyond school.
Additionally, the sheer effort and self-organisation to study so many subjects provide life skills that collectively add to a workforce. Students learn life skills in communication, working to deadlines and performance under pressure.
There are, of course, caveats with the Leaving Cert. The DEIS/non-DEIS [Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools] gap shows that background still shapes outcomes. For the 2017 entry cohort who sat their Leaving Cert exams in 2022 or 2023, the retention rate to the exams of DEIS schools was 83.4 per cent. For non-DEIS schools, it was 92.1 per cent, a gap of 8.7 percentage points.
Meanwhile, the focus on the Leaving Cert as a preparation for college entry rather than an evaluation of learning has undoubtedly been its defeat. For example, a whole industry has grown around the provision of grinds, whose aim is for students to maximise grades rather than necessarily deepen understanding of a given subject.
The problem with the Leaving Cert is not in the curriculum but in its inextricable link to third-level entry. Second-level education has been dancing to the tune of third level for years.
The points race is the creation of the CAO system, a private enterprise owned and run by the higher educational institutions. It is a cruel lottery which fails to adequately consider students’ aptitudes, interests and abilities. A radical overhaul of the CAO system is needed which values learning more than points.
Meanwhile, the Leaving Cert system is actively evolving. Reforms are currently planned which aim to introduce a 40 per cent project assessment across all subjects in coming years in addition to traditional exams.
The Leaving Cert remains a reliable and broadly effective foundation upon which Ireland’s educational success, social mobility and economic progress are built.
John McHugh is principal of Ardscoil Rís, Griffith Avenue, Dublin 9
Mary Coughlan: No. I have seen with my own children over the years, five of them, that the Leaving Cert isn’t for everyone or needed for everyone to get on in life
I did my Leaving Cert under great duress. My father had said if we didn’t want to do it, we had to go and work in the factory up the road in Shantalla in Galway. So I did my Leaving Cert and I still have my certificate. I found it recently. I passed.
I pretended I didn’t care, that I didn’t give a fig, but actually when the time came for the day of the results coming out I did feel I needed to have a piece of paper to say I wasn’t a failure. I’m 70 now so that was back in the 1970s.
I had a great love of English, history and geography and art history and I did really well in those subjects despite the fact I’d never do a tap and was mitching half my life from school but I had a great, great English teacher, a great history teacher.
One day I asked my son what do you want to do, and he said ‘I want to cook’. But that was not available for him on his curriculum.
Did it prepare me for life? No, it didn’t prepare me. But it gave me a lifelong desire to go and see places and read up on things and to know about the world and our history but apart from that really it’s a disaster.
I went on and did what I wanted to do. I wasn’t even allowed to sing in the school choir because they said my register was too low for a woman.
I don’t think the artistic side of people is encouraged.
The Leaving Cert does not prepare you for life in my opinion unless you really, really, really need to get six million points to go into whatever it is you need to do.
And the pressure. I’ve seen my 16-year-old and 18-year-old grandchildren now studying and having such anxiety about points and all that stuff, it’s not right. School should be some learning and some fun but right now it’s pressure to get points, that’s all it is. Once you pass your Junior Cert I think the pressure is tough.
I have seen with my own children over the years, five of them, that the Leaving Cert isn’t for everyone or needed for everyone to get on in life. One of my daughters went off to study with Monty Roberts, the horse whisperer in California, because she just loved horses. We gave her permission to leave school after her Junior Cert. She really, really was very unhappy at school and she found what she wants to do. Her experience has been wonderful since she left school.
One of my sons has worked in a Michelin-star restaurant after a gruesome two years of trying to get him to study for his Leaving Cert. One day I asked him what do you want to do, and he said ‘I want to cook’. But that was not available for him on his curriculum.
The Leaving Cert is not for everyone but there is nothing else.
Another daughter is now a teacher but she worked in the arts for years and then decided she wanted to go back to college to do special needs teaching; my third daughter did a degree in I don’t know how many things and she has a masters now, while my other son went to college and studied science at UCD and then decided after that he wanted to do music and went to Trinity to do music. He is now working in sound design and editing for film and TV and recently won an award. He did sound for the Kneecap film and has two pieces in it.
But for kids who don’t want to go to college it is really hard for them to step out of the system and say I want to go to America to study horse whispering or I want to be a chef – and they are now very successful in what they do.
I think there is a better preparation for life. I just don’t know what it is.
Mary Coughlan is a singer, mother and grandmother.
