IN 1983, when your correspondent was sharpening his pencils in a classroom in Synge Street School for the Intermediate Cert, Michael Jackson had just released Thriller and was about to conquer the world. Our conquest was just as important, if more basic, since it involved little more than getting over an essay, a spot of summation and some grammar. But we were hampered by something with which Jackson was not.
He had a single white glove as the symbol of his efforts. We had a scratchy grey woollen jumper, a blue and white tie and grey wool mix trousers. On a hot summer day, they made us itch in places we didn't even know we had. It was like being wrapped in fibreglass - or, worse, suddenly finding you were the focus of major infestation of fleas.
"You can't be comfortable," says Evelyn O'Neill, a Transition Year student in Loreto Beaufort, Rathfarnham, Dublin, who sat her Junior Cert last year. "My uniform is too itchy and scratchy," she says. "It can distract you. It makes you more tense - and it doesn't make you perform any better."
A student of Muckross College, Donnybrook, Dublin, who sat her exams in uniform last year, found it "easier to go in in jeans." By contrast Andrew Keane, who sat his Junior Cert last year at St Mary's, Rathmines, Dublin, didn't find the uniform a particular distraction: "You're too concerned about the exams to worry about it."
THE uniform issue is a sensitive one. Each year anger is aroused when teachers are seen to be endangering the welfare of exam candidates by reacting in a heavy handed manner over uniforms. Students may feel that they should be given a degree of freedom about what they wear at exams.
The Department of Education's guidelines make it clear that "the individual student is the focus of the Certificate Examinations. For many candidates the examinations are a time of anxiety and this fact, coupled with their importance for the future life opportunities of the candidates, must inform the roles of all participants. Roughly translated, this means that the students come first but the Department has generally been reluctant to take a firm position on uniforms.
The Department takes the view that, since most certificate exams are held in schools, students remain subject to school regulations, but it does suggest that decisions on uniforms should be taken in consultation with parents, teachers and students.
In practice, consultation is frequently minimal. Yet one Dublin school, St Anne's Secondary School, Milltown, could offer an example of how the issue can be dealt with in an even handed way. St Anne's is already unusual in that, under principal Mr Paul Scanlon, it has dispensed with the traditional rules in favour of a code of excellence. Mr Scanlon terms it a move from a rules based system to a value based system.
"It's not that we have to wear a uniform," he says. "It's just handier that wad. We discussed it as regards exams - not in a formal meeting but just as a result of chatting with them. I was quite open. But they felt that it takes a lot of pressure off them to wear a uniform. It takes pressure off the girls especially - they don't have to spend half the morning wondering what they'll wear today that they didn't wear yesterday."
ARGUABLY, exam morning is not the time for a student to make a stand on the issue. Each year the success of a handful of students is placed at risk when they arrive either partly or fully out of uniform. Last year one student had to run home across fields to get a suitable pair of trousers, while his classmates got on with their first paper. Principals, it seems, have generally proved themselves inflexible on uniforms for exam.
"I think that's ridiculous," says Mr Scanlan. "If a girl came in without her uniform I wouldn't hunt her home. A girl is under enough pressure during the exams without me creating more pressure for her."
Not all principals take such an enlightened approach. But is it fair to send a student home for a breach of uniformdiscipline, since there is a real risk that the student may not be admitted to the exam if he or she is late as a result? What rights do students have if, either deliberately or for reasons outside their control, they fail to turn up in the required uniform? What sort of action can principals take".
The Department stresses the need for "proportionality" - in other words, action should not be excessive. "Examinations need to be conducted in a calm atmosphere conducive to the well being of students," says the Department. "Schools should be conscious of this in responding to any breach of regulations during this period." It feels that excluding someone from an exam or taking action which might cause them to miss an exam is "disproportionate."
The Department recommends that a student who breaches guidelines once should be allowed to sit an exam while parents are contacted. Repeated breaches should be dealt with by arranging for the student to sit the exam elsewhere. The Department does not recommend sending students running across fields - or, as was the case in one Dublin school, knocking on the doors of junior girls to borrow a skirt.
Good sense about uniforms is required from students and schools. If there is a policy on uniforms for exams, then students should grin and bear it.
The Junior Cert and Leaving Cert are the toughest academic tests that many students ever face. College places, job offers and simple self esteem rest on the results. Where students do lapse, it seems only fair that schools should resist punishing them excessively.