Leaving Cert – too much information

A chara, – Would it be too much to ask The Irish Times to ask the proletariat of the teaching profession for their views of each Leaving Cert exam? We regularly read column inches in your paper on the exam pressure cooker, and the role that access to grinds plays in increasing educational inequality, yet you continue to provide free advertisement for well-known grind schools and “subject experts”, who feed off this stressful year for students. It’s time for the tail to stop wagging the dog on this important issue. – Is mise,

ROSS O’CARROLL,

Sligo.

Sir, – Every year, starting around May, you publish useful articles highlighting the pitfalls to be expected and avoided in the Leaving Cert, with an abundance of advice to students on what to do and not to do in relation to studying, taking breaks and keeping active to avoid the stress of the Leaving Cert, the hype surrounding which rears its head annually in the month of May. As a teacher of Leaving Cert students, I can never understand why such articles are not published at the start of the academic year, which, if heeded, should result in eliminating and most certainly reducing the “expected and annual stress” in the first place. – Yours, etc,