Crazy points system means we have lots of square pegs in round holes

Ryle Dwyer

Our educational system has been modernised since I sat the Leaving Certificate in 1963.

While studying European history in the United States, one of my professors remarked that in the 1500s there was an emphasis on the classics in education.

Secondary students were actually required to learn Latin, a dead language, he said. It seemed our system of education then was locked in the 16th century, as Latin was a requirement for matriculation to get into university here as late as the 1960s.

Since then we have 'modernised' with the crazy points system. The American high school system has problems of its own, but teenage pupils who have never lived away from home are not expected to make career choices until they have spent at least two years in a third-level college.

On the other hand, we require pupils to make such choices before they even sit the Leaving Cert. They have to decide what course they wish to take at university.

Pupils at that age will be greatly influenced by their parents and, as a society, we are incubating problems. It reminds me of the man who complained one night that his cousin spent seven years at Maynooth studying for the priesthood. He was only ordained a few weeks when he realised that it was his mother who had the vocation.

The highest points in the Leaving Cert results are usually required for medicine and dentistry. Last year just 4% of the 12,000 who applied for places in those courses were successful.

Students doing the Leaving Cert for the first time are losing out to repeat students in the points race for such courses, as well as to students from abroad who are getting preference because they pay fees to the colleges.

Last year there were around 22,000 foreign students enrolled in Irish colleges. These generate around E150 million a year for the collages, and over 300 million for the economy. As much again is contributed by a further 200,000 people who come here each year to learn English. Education has become big business.

Even though the foreign students pay high fees, this is still only a part of the overall cost of their education, with the result that Irish taxpayers are effectively subsidising them.

Most will probably return to their own countries and we could find ourselves with a serious shortage of doctors and dentists, even though as a society we have paid for their education.

Many of those who accept places in medicine and dentistry will do so just because they have the points to get in, not because they know it is what they really want to do in life. In some instances they may be fulfilling the frustrated ambitions of their parents.

Medicine and dentistry should be vocations, not mercenary occupations. If people go into those professions just for the money, they are liable to be lousy practitioners, and failures in life.

Doctors, especially those dealing with terminally ill patients, have a frighteningly high rate of suicide. Stephen Soreff, president of Education Initiatives of Boston University, has estimated that they lose the equivalent of a medical school class each year through physicians committing suicide in the United States.

There is anecdotal evidence that the suicide rate among dentists is even higher. The most common factors for suicides are depression and alcoholism, not the victim's profession.

Being stuck in an unsuited profession is a recipe for depression and alcoholism, which helps to explain the high rate of suicide among doctors and dentists.

Of course, that relates to frustrated people who remain in those professions, but we have the absurd situation of many people qualifying and then quitting those professions.

Maybe paying for them through university has cost their parents a fortune, but that is a small investment compared to what society has contributed towards their education. It is a crazy system.

Girls tend to do better than boys in the Leaving Certificate, with the result that more and more girls are taking up the positions in dentistry and medicine.

Many of them qualify and get married and become full-time mothers and housewives, which may have been their real ambition all along.

Their education will stand to them for the rest of their lives, but at an extravagant cost to society.

REFORM is needed within our education system not only in the interest of elite students, but of all pupils. I went through the primary and secondary education system here and seven years of university to earn a doctorate degree, without every having as much as one class on diet, which is fundamental to life.

Some students study a little about diet in home economics, but that is usually confined to girls.

Diet affects everyone and surely it is time our education system abandoned such antiquated, sexist attitudes. There has been much in recent years about the problem of obesity, which is a time-bomb threatening the health of not only this country but the EU.

Experts estimate that, under current conditions, two-thirds of the people of the EU will be obese by 2030. The problem normally affects adults, but 10% of Irish children between the ages of four and 16 are currently obese, and this will inevitably have long-terms consequences because obesity leads to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and strokes. Four out of every ten deaths in the EU are currently attributable to cardiovascular disease.

Yet in our educational system we are virtually ignoring the whole area of diet, which is fundamental to a healthy lifestyle. Children are being bombarded with advertisements for fast foods that are high in saturated fats.

It is as if we are making the same mistakes as we made with tobacco in past decades. People are not being furnished with knowledge that could protect them throughout life.

In the past week there was a breakthrough with the publication in the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association of a study at the University of California.

The report which was based on a 10-year study of the eating habits of 579 people over 60 years of age concluded that eating fruit and vegetables high in the B vitamin, folic acid, can more than halve the risk of developing Alzheimer's.

None of the people studied show any signs of Alzheimer's at the outset, but 57 of them went on to develop the disease. Researchers found that those who consumed at least 400 micrograms, the recommended daily amount of folic acid, had a 55% lower risk of contracting the disease.

It has been known for years that folic acid which is found in high amounts in chicken liver, legumes, leafy green vegetables, asparagus and orange juice plays a major role in warding off birth defects, such a spina bifida. The glaring need to address the problems of diet is so obvious that it exposes the urgent need for meaningful education reform.