Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is a pleasure to meet Mr. Burke. I will continue on from where Senator O'Donnell left off and speak about how students are dealt with when they suffer a bereavement during the leaving certificate. I am particularly aware of how much pressure such loss puts on students because as my niece sat her leaving certificate examination, her father was dying of cancer. She took her exams at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and was driven to Dublin to visit her father in hospital and was back to sit an examination the following day. I thought that was the most inhumane way to deal with somebody going through a crisis. I experienced something similar with my son in that during his leaving certificate examination, his sister was in St. James's Hospital being operated on for cancer. We must find a way to deal with human issues while at the same time retaining the integrity of the examination system. That will be a challenge for Mr. Burke.

I refer to the leaving and junior certificate examinations and the CAO and everything that goes with that, including the life changing opportunities that arise as a result of a three-hour or four-hour examination. I have left my trade union hat behind so I can say that there was some benefit in having ongoing assessment that could offset the damage that three hours might do to an individual.

One of the things that concerns me is the teaching of languages, which includes the teaching of our national language and our approach to international languages. Recently, on a visit to Finland, a young 12-year old student spoke perfect English as he walked me around his school. When I queried him on his level of English, he informed me that he was equally proficient in Swedish, Finnish, Russian and German.