Sir, – The Leaving Certificate oral examinations are due to take place between April 9th and April 14th. The State Examinations Commission last week sent out another email to all principals of post-primary schools asking them to encourage their French, Spanish, German and Irish teachers to sign up. This recruitment campaign has been going on for months and has cost public money and resources. Without enough examiners, the oral examinations will be thrown into disarray for 56,000 students.
It is clear that this problem needs an urgent solution. Instead of using a chunk of public money and resources continuing to run a failed recruitment campaign, would money not be better spent offering some type of one-off tax credit for this work? This might work as the extra incentive needed to encourage language teachers to complete the job applications that desperately need to arrive in the SEC inbox. Otherwise, the consequences will be pricey indeed for our schools and students. – Yours, etc,
SINÉAD O’LOGHLIN,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.