IS the State exam system producing a population of homogenous students? Is there too much emphasis on the regurgitation of specific information? Should there be more emphasis on conceptual thinking? Some experts think so.

"I feel that the system is so flawed," says Dr Mona O'Moore, director of the Anit-Bullying Unit at TCD. "Each time that I see a report coming out saying that it's the fairest system, I disagree. Once you've reached the goal posts it's fair but not everybody reaches the goal post."

She believes that the system creates enormous stress. "It's a system that really puts every child under pressure on the day and people feel that they are judged on their points."

The barometer of opinion swings wide when it comes to assessing the worth or otherwise of our exam system. Educationalists address the question with philosophical stoicism. Their general comments fall into the "it may be tough but at least it's fair" type.

Jacinta Stewart, education officer with the City of Dublin VEC, says that "at the end of the day it's a totally objective measure, it's not influenced by anything". The negative aspect is that "it's one chance" and "if you've blown it you've blown it".

The Leaving Cert is about assessing "a high standard of general education", according to John Griffin, principal of Senior College, Dun Laoghaire, a constituent college of Dun Laoghaire Institute of Further Education. "It's accountability time for the learning that has taken place throughout the year," he says.

"Beyond this point you're talking more about qualifications that are passports for careers and you're talking about ladders of progression from then onwards."

FROM Leaving Cert level, says Griffin, an individual can progress to certificate level, on to diploma level and on to a degree. He points out that "the format of exams is another issue" that must be looked at. "We would favour a lot of project work throughout the year where it goes to 30 or 40 per cent of the final exam," he says. "It's unfair, he adds, that students have a "once-off chance" of doing well, especially where there is a danger that they would have an "off day." He says that the trend is towards an increase in the role of continuous assessment and this, he says, "is a fantastic development".

According to Tony Bates, president of the INTO and principal of a special school for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, there has been a huge improvement in the exam system in particular over the past five years. In the past when people spoke about exams they spoke in the context of written exams, he says. "Nowadays you go from written to oral to aural to project work and to continuous assessment and all of those are part of the exam system... it's a great development.

"I welcome all these changes in a major way, particularly coming from my own background where students get a great thrill out of getting an A or a B in a foundation level subject. To them it doesn't matter what exam it is but that they have got a great result. In the exams of the past they would have failed."

ALTHOUGH the traditional exam system "was brutally equal in the sense that it's fair" there's always the danger that the work of 15 years at school will not be properly recognised or assessed if it happens that a student is not well on the day.

Sharon Phelan, promotions officer for the Leaving Cert Applied programme within the Department of Education's curriculum development unit, is enthusiastic also about the role of continuous assessment in today's exam system. "It's a major breakthrough," she says. The idea of short-term goals means that students are more motivated. "In the LCA it means that when they sit for their finals in June a lot of the pressure is gone. That's why they will sit very well in other colleges when they do further courses.

Jacinta Stewart comments on the difference in the way mature students approach their exams compared to most 15 and 17 year olds. About 20 per cent of those who sit exams through the City of Dublin VEC are in the adult bracket. "Adults react differently to 15 and 17 year olds," she says. "Some decide two days before they go in that they won't do the exam. Perhaps they've had problems with maths during the year. They are white with terror."

For many mature students, she explains, "it's their second chance, their last chance".

Dr Mona O'Moore, of TCD, says that the system "favours the more introverted and the more striving personality." She believes that children who are out-going and interested in issues, such as current affairs, "haven't the same opportunities". The exam system is "really just looking for specific details and it's encouraging those who have a particularly good memory. It's not getting at the conceptual level, it's not for children who are good at abstract reasoning and who are able to expand and evaluate.

"There are many alternative ways and it's time we looked at them," she says. "This system is producing a homogenous group of students."