LEAVING CERTIFICATE/Biology: Department of Education officials were fighting off an unlikely alliance of students, parents, teachers and frog lovers yesterday after a furious reaction to this year's Leaving Cert biology paper.
The inclusion of a question about experimenting on frog tadpoles on the paper provoked an angry reaction from across the education spectrum, with even teacher unions such as the ASTI denouncing the paper.
A Department spokesman said there had been a "steady stream of calls" complaining about the difficulty of the biology paper throughout yesterday, although the Department declined to say how many were frog related.
However, in a surreal twist, a Department statement reassured the public there was no cruelty involved in the experiment outlined in the paper. The students were asked in question 15 (d) (iii) to describe an experiment which looked at the effects of "thyroxine or iodine concentration on the metamorphosis of frog tadpoles".
The Department's statement, however, sought to allay any fears the frogs were hurt. "There is no cruelty involved in the experiment and frogs are released back into the wild after the experiment".
Whatever about the poor frogs, most teachers and parents were more concerned about the poor students who had to overcome the difficulty of that question and several others in what was described as the hardest biology paper for many years.
Mr Joe Reville, a teacher at Terenure College who has written several textbooks on biology, said the frog question was "really asking too much of biology teachers and their students". He said it was only the second time in 31 years it had been asked
Mr Ray McGough, of Magh Ene school in Bundoran, Co Donegal, said teachers were told several years ago it was illegal to collect frogs or frogspawn for experiments, so virtually no student was familiar with such an experiment.
He said the frog question, plus another one on population which seemed to have little to do with biology, would have major implications for science generally in schools.
The Irish Times and the skoool.ie website received large volumes of emails and calls from students and parents about the paper, including the frog question.
One parent was particularly upset about the effect on his daughter. "My daughter's favourite subject is no more. She left home in the morning enthusiastic and confident that she knew the subject. Somebody in the Department of Education decided to find out how much she did not know and destroyed a love and a passion".
The ASTI also issued a statement. "The ASTI will be making representations to the chief examiner in relation to this matter through its biology subject representative".
A Department spokesman said all the comments, calls, emails and letters would be taken into account when the marking conference was held in Athlone shortly.
