Mr. Preston Ó Caoimh:

We are moving in the right direction. We are happy with the way stuff is moving, as I said a few minutes ago, away from the high-stakes exams, but it does not work for everyone. As was said earlier, it does not work for people who want to move into apprenticeships or who are striving to grow themselves as people rather than academically, which is what the leaving certificate does. It puts people into a bracket where they have to cram everything into their minds by the end of the year and read it off like a robot, which is not fair to students who cannot perform like that. The vast majority of students do not do well in big exams. They might do well throughout the year in smaller classroom exams, which should be counted in the final grade like in a lot of other countries, where if people take a course and finish it, they get the grade for that course rather than two years' work falling onto one exam.