The Leaving Cert is a joke and should be abolished. It caters for only one type of intelligence and makes many great people with lots of potential believe that they are stupid. It creates unnecessary pressure, mental health issues and problems for young people who will never use a certain subject ever again in their adult careers. It denies the nurses,businessmen or even historians an equal opportunity just because they struggle with dieing languages or unnecessary mathematical problems. But worst of all it took my best friends life and it is dragging the life out of me. For all the boys and girls who are gifted with good memory and the ability to sit for hours and stare at books I salute you. It’s something I could never do. But when so many of us are looked down upon while our minds are full of other information “outside the syllabus” it can be a dark and lonely road. Our friends,parents and teachers can misjudge us due to numbers on a page and our government can allow a faulted system to continue. The same government that saw 4000 students fail pass maths in one year and then do nothing to change the way it is thought. But one day it will collapse in onto itself and drastic changes will be made. This is not the 1990s anymore and our world is changing fast. The underdogs, the ones considered stupid by a system that rewards conformity will shape and mold our new education system and show that not all intelligence can be absorbed from a textbook. “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing it is stupid”- Albert Einstein
I could not agree more. The entire education system that exists in the UK and Ireland is anachronistic and no longer relevant in today’s world. It is a ridiculous system that offers no merit to real self directed learning, but instead instills conformity and obedience.
The entire concept of rewarding points based on how much you can memorize and regurgitate so that an examiner, with a pre-designed marking scheme, can decide how well you learn and churn is preposterous. It was instilled by the British occupation of Ireland and rigidly enforced by religious institutions and the church. It has become the sad issue that an examination that you spend five years of your life “learning for” will somehow dictate your entire life and how “successful” you will be in the eyes of a society that is consumed with greed and selfishness.
This system of “education” is merely a creation of the Industrial revolution and is synonymous with 19th century societal standards. The education system as we know it is no longer relevant to the technology and advancements that have come about in recent decades. It is a tool of neo-liberalist capitalism that extends to third level education and wealthy institutions that make millions every year that feed right back into the hands that created them for the priviliged in our society.
To really understand the problems with our current education system, check out Ken Robinson. He is a maverick thinker on the conformity and mundane workings of today’s schools and colleges.