Every so often, I stumble on a TV news report that reminds me how dumb some of our politicians are and how dumber many in the population are to listen to a word they say, let alone believe it.
One such moment appeared on RTÉ News yesterday evening. The Minister for Education Norma Foley was talking about the Leaving Certificate and the marks attained by students.
It seems they’ve been deliberately boosting student marks by 7% because education was seriously disrupted by Covid. That +7% is still in place, even though Covid is largely gone. Norma the Educator explained how they’d be getting back to normality carefully. Next year’s marks would get a 5% boost, the following year a bit less, and so the boost would fade away.
First and most importantly: who seriously believes that scribbling stuff on paper, in a silent exam room with dozens of other students, is in any way an accurate gauge of the student’s mastery of the subject? What if the student is feeling a bit queasy that day? What if they can’t write very fast? (My own daughter, some years ago, used practice her handwriting for weeks before exams, for the good reason that it would be otherwise illegible,since she was used typing on a computer keyboard.) What if the student picks a question to answer which they know less of, rather than one where they could parade their knowledge?
Which brings us to the unavoidable fact: exams like the Leaving Certificate or our GCSEs north of the border don’t test the pupil’s ability to understand or think about an area of knowledge; it rather demands that they re-produce lots of information which tests their memory, not their mastery.
And even at the level of memory testing, we have a fleeting thing. A few years ago, I sat for a GCSE in Irish. I emerged with an A*. Immediately the exam was over, all my information seeped away. I still can only stumble through a cupla focal in Irish.
Which brings us to what students should study in secondary school. I would dispute the fact that only someone who has passed GCSE in Maths and English should be allowed into a university. For most of us, the Maths we did in secondary school was pointless and in many cases (like my own) incomprehensible. English has a stronger case, but there again, much depends on the teacher. His/her job is to start a small fire of love for the subject in the student’s heart. That way, they ‘ll have a chance of enjoying and being enlightened by literature that speaks to their lives, and will be helped develop writing and speaking skills by practice in areas where they feel motivated, a real desire to let others know what they think and feel.
Final point. People invariably expend more effort and develop more understanding when they engage with issues that are real for them, not something that is patently fake. Most classroom turn their back on the world out there and opt for the cosy pretend-world of the classroom. Faced with this fake world, it’s no wonder some students rebel.
The present Irish government treats the Irish people as incompetent and as lesser than themselves they will decide what the Irish people should be told and what not to be told that also is a problem for the opposition parties who are slow to respond..