Sir, – I welcome Carl O'Brien's article "Lessons learned: How to improve our education system post-pandemic" (August 21st). We do need radical reform. We needed it before the pandemic too.
Why are we holding so tightly to an outdated Leaving Certificate? What do we perceive as the risks of changing it? The current system is doing a disservice to all of our students – the educational experiences are based on routine activities rather than true investigation, growth and opportunities for our young people to grow into adults who will enhance society for all. We are defining success in such limited terms in schools that students from all backgrounds are been given a false sense of academic excellence. There are so many students that are marginalised in a system that values rote learning over education. Then there are others whose parents are demonised for spending money on what is deemed to be one of the most important things in life, education. Nobody is winning here. It is not surprising that people who have been success stories of the current system wish to hold on to it. To suggest it needs to be changed brings their own success into question. But for many, that success is built on an ability to learn something off by heart often without understanding it fully and memorise it enough to be able to write it down in a specific amount of time. This is benefitting a small number in society and is disadvantaging a huge number of students for whom that particular skill doesn’t happen to be their forte. In one way or another every single student who scores highly in the CAO points is very strong in this one particular skill. We know nothing of the skills and strengths of all the other applicants who didn’t score as highly. It’s ludicrous when you think about it really. So rather than keeping the playing field familiar we need find ways to make it open to all. And maybe the educational experiences that allow for that will be the levelling that we know is so badly needed. That seems to me a risk worth taking. – Yours, etc,
LESLEY BYRNE,
Principal,
Clogher Road
Community College,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.