Mr. Preston Ó Caoimh:

In my experience, one of the biggest pressures when doing the leaving certificate was the fact that all teachers are expecting you to get a H1 in their subject. They are all giving students the amount of work needed to get a H1 in their subject. Students might not want a H1 in a certain subject. There are seven subjects, so students are not counting one. Then students are going home with piles and piles of homework given out by seven teachers throughout the day and working all through the night to get that done before they even start on study. There is such a disparity between subjects at the same time. Like I said earlier, if you are doing higher level maths, there is a lot more work involved than would be the case if you are doing woodwork and do most of your work in the workshop. I know there is an academic component to it, but it is very different. Giving the 25 extra points to maths kind of signifies that it is more important than other subjects, which I do not think is entirely fair, especially when a lot of students are more word smart rather than good with numbers, which can add a lot of pressure to those trying to catch up with maths when it is not their strong suit.