Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the motion and the opportunity to debate an incredibly important subject relevant to the lives of students throughout the country. I have absolutely no issue with the substance of the motion and will fully support it. It has already been referenced by Deputy Ó Laoghaire in his contribution that a further debate we could be having on this is on the model of assessment that would be fair not only for 2022 but beyond it. A large part of my contribution will discuss this. To speak on the motion as it is, this year's students simply cannot sit a traditional form of leaving certificate. Even if, as is the hope, we will have returned to some degree of normality by late May and June, the opportunity for a normal leaving certificate experience has already passed this cohort of students. Therefore, we need to be adaptable and compassionate and, potentially, to be innovative. There is still time for us to do this.

It has already been said by every speaker, because every speaker has had the same level of engagement with leaving certificate students, that this year's students have missed a huge swathe of time because they or their teachers have been out of school. In some cases, and my sympathy really lies with them and it is an issue I have been raising since the very start of the pandemic, students have an underlying health condition or have a family member at home with an underlying health issue and simply have not been able to engage a constructive form of education and simply have not been catered for. There are a variety of reasons this year's cohort have been impacted and cannot have a traditional leaving certificate experience.

There have been obvious complications, not least the fact a percentage of this year's cohort did not sit a traditional junior certificate examination. There is a lack of data that will skew the hybrid model that was used last year. It means we might have to resort to historical records, which none of us want. All of this is a very real and relevant issue. It is certainly not insurmountable. It is absolutely not the fault of the leaving certificate students who were not able to experience a traditional junior certificate. They certainly should not be doubly punished as a consequence. Rather, the very fact the students did not sit a traditional junior certificate examination is further reason they should not sit a traditional leaving certificate examination.

I will say it again, and repeat the statement made by the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals: we may need to get around the table to find solutions to this. No one is coming in here to say exactly how the model would work. I do not expect the Minister to do so during this debate. I do expect stakeholders to be around the table and to be innovative and solution oriented.

I have said time and again, and I believe it to be so to the very essence of my being, the leaving certificate fails students every year. I want to make this very clear. There has been a creeping narrative in recent years, and I have particularly noticed it in recent months, that the leaving certificate examinations, the CAO system and the points race are pristine. We are told the leaving certificate is transparent and an upholder of equality and that students will be robbed of this system of equality if other methods of assessment are considered. I reject this completely.

Not to nitpick in any way, I refer to a contribution of the Minister from May 2020 prior to her becoming Minister for Education. The issue being discussed was what form of leaving certificate the first cohort of Covid students would have. She stated she profoundly regretted the plan B option of hosting the traditional leaving certificate did not come to pass. She stated that although it is flawed in a few respects, there is an essential fairness and equity at the core of the leaving certificate that is unmatched in any other type of exam. She stated it is independent and anonymous. This is the narrative we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves the leaving certificate rewards hard work and not privilege. This trickles down into individual narratives of success and failure and they become internalised. It is an everyday form of history being written by the victors. It is very important that those of us who have benefited from a traditional leaving certificate and those of us who have not hold up a mirror to ourselves to see why we value the system.

I often think of students who receive high points who never recognise the privileges that aided them in obtaining those results. These include the grinds they received, the fact they have parents who went to college and understand the system and the time and physical space they dedicate to doing well. I certainly do not begrudge anybody this. Likewise, there are students who face significant barriers, such as those whose parents left school early and never went to college, those who work part-time to try to help the household and those who do not have their own bedrooms or a quiet place to study. If these students fail to get the points they require they may think it is a personal failure and not a systemic failure. It is often easier to disguise privilege then to face oppression. The leaving certificate replicates privilege every year. Either the world opens up or it closes in for a student after the leaving certificate.

I believe the evidence year on year backs up that the leaving certificate is a postcode lottery. I will point to several Dublin postcodes. Dublin 6 is a wealthy part of the country. It has a 99% progression rate to university and college. In Dublin 17 the progression rate is 15%. I accept these figures are from 2014 but I guarantee the figure for Dublin 6 is exactly the same, with that for Dublin 17 increasing by a couple of percentage points, if even. Higher Education Authority data from 2017 found that students from affluent areas achieve an average of 446 leaving certificate points compared to an average of 368 leaving certificate points achieved by students in disadvantaged areas.

That is based on the Pobal HP deprivation index. It also showed that 72% of students from affluent areas achieved over 400 points and 29% achieved over 500 points. In comparison, 37% of students from disadvantaged areas achieved over 400 points and 9% achieved over 500 points.

I was very lucky in my own educational experience and in many ways my politicisation came when I was afforded the opportunity to enter the Trinity access programmes which exist to bring students from underrepresented areas into universities into colleges. One of the questions Dr. Cliona Hannon, the director of those programmes, asked me during the session was whether it was simply the case that we keep the very intelligent people in Dublin 6, where 99% of people get to go to college, and the non-intelligent people in the community I grew up in, Dublin 1, where a mere 21% of people go on to college. It is simply not the case that we do so.

The leaving certificate is flawed or else it purposely replicates privilege. That is borne out every single year. One only has to look at The Irish Timesfeeder school list to see which schools get the best places in college. This happens by design.

We also know that the leaving certificate causes an enormous amount of stress. In 2016 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that Ireland reform the leaving certificate as the terminal exam was found to be imposing a disproportionate level of mental stress on young people. How did this committee find this out? It simply listened to the students and was compassionate in what it heard.

I also want to acknowledge that there is an alternative to the traditional leaving certificate that happens every year, which is the leaving certificate applied programme, which despite its benefits, including increased positive relationships between teachers and students and autonomy for students, is often ignored to the point that there is no pathway from the leaving certificate applied directly into our universities at the moment.

I had the privilege of teaching in those classes and I found students who were questioning, engaging and were very collaborative in their learning. It is not valued, despite the fact that they learn in a different way and it is no less important.

I have also heard a creeping narrative coming in that students who have not been afforded the opportunity to do the leaving certificate in the traditional form over the past year may be somehow less resilient because they did not have to take the hardship that is the almost “The Hunger Games”-like scenario of our leaving certificate. Let us be very clear. Every one of us who has been engaged by students over the past three years has encountered a cohort of students who are not only resilient but are holding themselves as accountable as Deputies and Ministers and in a way that I do not believe has happened previously. That has been a learning experience in and of its own, and one which we should not underestimate.

We are also told that not every student should go to college. The conversation then turns to stating that apprenticeships are equally valuable. I fully agree that is the case but it should not be the case that it is predominantly people from working-class areas who are expected to take up these apprenticeships. I fully believe that 99% of students in Dublin 6 going to college is too much. Perhaps we need more doctors from DEIS areas and more plumbers from more wealthy and affluent parts. If we are talking about more apprenticeships and saying that not everyone needs to go to college, let us also acknowledge that there are areas and communities where people have not had the same opportunities that people in other areas have had.

While I welcome the opportunity to speak on the leaving certificate today, and I fully support what this motion is trying to achieve, I also feel that it is important to look beyond it. I want to conclude by acknowledging that we need more than one type of educational model. Alternative forms of education are something that I raised with the Taoiseach earlier today. Very specifically, there is a report in the Minister’s Department on alternative education that started in 2018 and we need that work to be concluded and published because the leaving certificate is not the be-all and end-all.

I support the motion and thank Sinn Féin and Deputy Ó Laoghaire for bringing it forward. If the leaving certificate in its current form is proven to be unfit for purpose, I believe it will be unfit for purpose long into the future. It does not set up our students for progression on to university, does not develop them emotionally to deal with the stresses that come with being a young person and does not provide pathways into work. We place importance on it because, culturally, we have always placed importance on it. Many people in positions of power and influence have benefited from it and those who have not, simply, have not had a voice at the table in order to call it out for what it is.

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