Leaving Cert exam 'marathon'

Madam, – With all due respect to Teresa Walsh (May 25th), could we take a serious dose of reality please? While sitting eight…

Madam, – With all due respect to Teresa Walsh (May 25th), could we take a serious dose of reality please? While sitting eight- and-a-half hours of exams over an 11-hour period is excessive by any (normal) standards (almost the same as a working day), I can’t imagine a Lithuanian national sitting an exam in the subject of Lithuanian will suffer too much.

As for the comment that it amounts to “discrimination”, could I ask if Irish is an option on the curriculum for Irish nationals in Vilnius? Should anybody feel the stress on this individual is excessive, then award the student in question an A1 grade without sitting the exam – that is inevitably what will be achieved anyway.

To quote an abuse of Article 2 of the UN Convention on Human Rights of the Child in this context is a joke, and both undermines and belittles the reasons why such articles were implemented in the first place. – Yours, etc,

BARRY HARBISON,

Thormanby Lawns,

Howth,

Baile Atha Cliath.