Junior Certificate - Unfair and wasteful

Despite repeated calls for radical reform of the education system, the Junior Cert exam results confirm that little has changed. With the exception of a growing trend towards higher maths, there is a ‘Groundhog Day’ feeling that learning by rote is still the driving force at the heart of Ireland’s jaded education system.

Every day, tens of thousands of pupils in second-level schools up and down the country continue to learn their lessons in precisely the same way their parents and grandparents were taught before them. Not only is this a gross waste of taxpayers’ money, it is utterly unfair to young people who have to compete in a world where learning is a password to success.

With vast libraries readily available at the touch of a computer key, learning by memory is consigned to the past. Debate, discussion, and argument should be the basic planks of education and understanding — not parrot-like repetition. Memorising a technique is not learning.