John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am very grateful to the Cathaoirleach for giving me a small amount of time. I did not realise that this item was on the agenda and I wanted to take advantage of the Minister of State's presence to state that this is an area about which I have had some concerns. When the examination was first introduced, there were a number of high-profile cases of youngsters in this country who had full marks in the leaving certificate but who were not accepted for medical school. The clear logic of that is that there was something that these children could be assessed on at the age of 17 or 18 which determined that 15 years hence, they would not be suitable to be appointed as specialists in hospital medicine or as general practitioners. I do not accept that this is possible. I expressed grave concerns at the time. When we have a national examination in the leaving certificate which, in truth, is as incorruptible as anything can be and if we are going to accept children into professional courses like medicine after secondary school, this should be the final authority.

Let me go further. The idea of accepting children into medical school after the leaving certificate is a mistake. The time to do this is after they have had a phase of education at third level for three or four years. We should move towards the models that exist in north America and other parts of the world where medicine is invariably a graduate programme. Simply put, I was 14-years-old when I was making the subject choices for the leaving certificate in terms of going into medicine. As it happened, I am extraordinarily happy that I did go into medicine but I do not think this is the way we should be educating and selecting people. People should get a relatively broad education with a strong science focus, go on to third level education, get a full mature understanding of what is involved in a career in medicine and then make a decision as to whether they wish to practice it.