The Department of Education and Science, that sleeping dinosaur of the Irish State, has just exploded out of the traps with a ground-breaking policy move……the timetable for Ireland’s national secondary school examinations has changed. Holy Crap! What a bold move in the reform of Ireland’s antiquated education system!
I wonder how many suits in there in Marlborough Street (Dublin, HQ of Department) mulled over that one. No doubt there were task forces, reviews, position papers, countless meetings, reviews of reviews etc.
According to Sean Flynn of The Irish Times, who tends towards the fawning and gushing when writing about Mary Hanafin, Minister for Education and Science, the reforms were “pushed through” by her.
If minor changes in the overall scheme of things, such as this, have to be ‘pushed through’, the education system is in an even worse state than I thought. Interesting choice of words from Sean Flynn. It almost suggests that even Mary gave up waiting for her mandarins to quit talking and make a decision. They probably had to be clinically sedated as the press release was written up, such is their fear of any change to the status quo.
Speaking more generally, I’m intrigued by our apparent preoccupation with the secondary school terminal examinations. The media (RTE, main broadsheets) go ape-shit during the annual exams season, going as far as to report on what was in the paper and what candidates thought of it. I’m sorry, but if you’ve done the exams you don’t really give a damn what was on the paper every year since. The media frenzy is part of the Irish middle-class obsession with Leaving Certificate grades, ‘keeping up with the Joneses’, and getting into the ‘right’ course in the ‘right’ college.
Click here for the full text of that ‘Times article on the timetable changes.
Tags: Department of Education and Science, dinosaur, exam timetable, Irish Times, Leaving Certificate, Mary Hanafin, reforms, RTE, students
