Mr. Evan Murphy:

The questions and comments are much appreciated. Senator Joe O'Reilly asked about the pros and cons of the leaving certificate examinations or continuous assessment. The leaving certificate is a very concentrated amount of pressure. That does not necessarily mean it is worse than the pressure of steady continuous assessment. In my experience in school, the people around me were fairly unanimously in favour of more continuous assessment. That is not to say that is how all young people feel. If nothing else, the Department of Education should have explained to us how it discussed the issue, used data, looked at what people were saying and looked at the effectiveness of the leaving certificate as continuous assessment or the two-week period of examinations. Even just a communication of why the decision has been made in that way or why it felt one way was better than the other would have been good. We can appreciate that a choice has to be made but people would be much more appreciative of it if they understood what went into the decision itself.

Senator Black asked about good alternatives to the leaving certificate examinations. I am definitely more of a talker. Oral exams in languages have been around a long time but they could potentially be used even for something like English. People have to interpret the text or whatever they are reading in a different way but they may be less comfortable writing about it in such a pressured situation. They might be much more comfortable sitting down and just getting out what they feel about it or discussing it in a more open and less structured way. That kind of thing might be able to demonstrate their affinity or understanding of the material in a more lateral or versatile way than just exams or CBAs.