Disparity must be highlighted

THE results of the Leaving Certificate Examination were broadly in line with other years. But their publication again highlights the ongoing controversy over the existing syllabus. In later life people inevitably have to adapt to prevailing conditions in whatever profession hey take up, so some argue that adapting to the syllabus is merely one of the life skills that pupils need to develop.

The educational system is generally geared towards the needs of middle class students and often functions to the detriment of poorer people. "The syllabus needs to be geared to meet the needs of the students, rather than the other way round," Minister for Education Noel Dempsey said yesterday.

Several thousand of the students who did not sit the Irish examination would not have been exempted from taking Irish, but they clearly just dropped the subject anyway, which demonstrates the need for the Department of Education to face up to the reality that those students were wasting everybody's time sitting in Irish classes, when they have no interest in the subject and no intention of taking it in the examination.