My daughter who is sitting the Leaving Cert in June was planning to take a short break from her studies and join us on a family holiday in Lanzarote over Easter. Last month, we were told her language oral exams will take place during the holidays. Surely, students are entitled to a break at what is a highly stressful time?
The timing of the oral exams has been a source of lively debate. Some have argued that students’ mental health has been adversely affected by holding language orals over Easter for the past few years.
As a guidance counsellor, I always advise students that a balanced lifestyle during the two years of senior cycle is important to maximise their chances of success in the Leaving Cert.
However, to suggest that scheduling language orals over the Easter break is somehow injurious to students’ overall mental health holds little credibility.
Before the current arrangements, the orals always took place during normal school time. Teachers were recruited to administer the exams and were drawn from the normal teaching pool of language teachers. In the current context of acute shortages of teachers, the chances that they could be replaced with suitably qualified teachers is next to impossible.
In addition, many of the remaining language teachers were also released from their scheduled teaching duties so that they could work with students taking the orals in the period directly before their session. In effect, almost all language education for the entire school ceased to operate effectively for the duration of the orals.
Is this level of disruption justified on the basis that some students may feel pressured by having to attend their school twice over Easter?
Given that 40 per cent of marks for Irish and 25 per cent for European languages are awarded for the oral component, students should have the most conducive conditions possible.
When these tests took place in school time, it resulted in normal school life being disrupted. Tannoy systems to facilitate normal day-to-day announcements fell silent so as not to interrupt the orals. Students were directed away from the area of the school where the exams were occurring.
How could we ever contemplate returning to that level of disruption of teaching and learning for our second-level schools?
No one would ever suggest that we should attempt to run the Leaving Cert written exams while normal teaching and learning takes place. Why did we ever consider it appropriate to do so for the orals?
Furthermore, teachers are now well remunerated for giving up time over Easter to administer the exams. It would be very hard to argue that they should retain these higher rates of payment if they were to revert to undertaking this work during school time for which they are already in receipt of their normal teaching salary.
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