Sir, – As a retired teacher of English, with 43 years of experience, I am disheartened to see the Minister for Education continue to defend the proposal to examine Paper 1 of Leaving Certificate English at the end of fifth year (News, August 29th).
The development of good writing skills and a personal style is a process honed and refined over a two-year period.
It is unfair to assess students halfway through their course and smacks of an ill-considered zeal for change at all costs.
Any English teacher will attest to the desirability of assessing ability to produced well-written, extended essays at the end of the two years.
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The Association of Teachers of English has argued as much.
What is it about politicians that makes them ignore the advice of the primary experts in the field and continue to push the mantra of “reform”?
The last attempt at major reform in English was the Junior Cert.
This has many serious failings. Chief among them is the elimination of a requirement to produce extended pieces of writing. This has been replaced by a filling in of confined boxed spaces in workbooks. What preparation is that for the development of good writers at Leaving Cert?
Why is reform of the Leaving now being undertaken before any serious assessment has been undertaken into the changes already introduced at junior level?
In a country whose education system has produced many writers of world renown, it behoves the Minister to listen to those with the most expertise, the teachers of English, before it is too late. – Yours, etc,
JIM BYRNE,
Sallynoggin,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.