Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am conscious of having very limited time so I will touch briefly on a number of items in the Bill.

We cannot have a situation which we saw last year on grades and the disappointment for many students where it was too late for them to attend courses. We need grades to be provided in a more timely manner. Students also need more clarity on the standardisation process. Consideration also needs to be given in cases such as where one has opted for a written examination, for example, and then has to self-isolate or is struck down by Covid-19, as to what exactly happens in that situation. Clarity is needed in all of those situations.

Like many Members who have focused here today on the change from the current model leaving certificate, I wish to focus in my last minute on that issue also. Like many people, I remember the leaving certificate. I hated school, the leaving certificate and that whole process. I can still remember things that we actually nearly sung off. That is how we learned things, clapping along in a little rhyme. To this day we can probably say those things, no problem, but we still probably do not really know why we did that.

We have to move away from this model of drilling things into children's heads for an examination where one comes out completely traumatised and stressed. One has to ask what education or life lessons one has learned from that. I say very little. Education needs to more about other aspects and it cannot all be about examinations, points, scores and who is getting an "A". It needs to be about what people are learning. We need a lot more life skills, resilience-building and coping mechanisms for children together with practical knowledge, such as how to do one's taxes or change the wheel of a car. These sort of things are never taught in schools and these are the practical things that one needs in life. We need to start moving away from the traditional leaving certificate model system and to look at and examine our education system.

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