Madam, – What a pleasure it is to read of high-flying Leaving Cert students, their modesty and their impressive hauls of A1s. But is it not odd that so many highlighted are heading off to study medicine? Is this the only field in which such whizzkids can be satisfied? In our current era of scientific and technological wonder, it is sad to think what these tyros could achieve elsewhere. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The high failure rate in Leaving Cert maths and other science subjects is more than a little disconcerting and clearly points to a problem with either the syllabus or the teaching methods we use to impart knowledge in these subjects. While welcome efforts are being made to address this issue with the pilot introduction of “project maths” the other sciences lag behind, with a staggering failure rate of 18 per cent in ordinary level chemistry. Urgent action is needed from our educators or the smart economy we hear so much about will be built on foundations of intellectual sand.
Two things need to be done, chemistry, physics and biology are best learned as hands-on laboratory subjects and yet our second level science laboratories are ill equipped and students spend too little time in them. By placing more emphasis on the laboratory and a little less on rote learning, there is no doubt in my mind that student interest and results will improve. The second improvement needed is to look at exactly what we are teaching in these subjects and make it relevant to the life of 18-year-olds. Basic scientific principles, which are what we want our young scientists to learn, should not be taught by writing dusty old formulae on the black board and telling students to remember them or else! We need a little more imagination from our educators and in particular those responsible for devising the science syllabuses. Let’s face it, offering double points for honours in maths is a tad unimaginative! – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In terms of hardy perennials, not even the first cuckoo can rival the first anti-Irish language finger-pointers. No sooner have the Leaving Cert results been distributed than we hear that students have been held back in their mathematics studies by studying Irish (John P O’Sullivan, August 19th).
It seems Irish language teachers have been running around their classes, willing their students by some dark, Gaelic druidism to fail maths. I can’t speak for Mr O’Sullivan, but many of my Irish teachers also taught maths and I, for one, never noticed their secret incantations against numeracy.
The Leaving Cert results should give us all pause for thought about the place of maths in society, the content of the maths curriculum and the need for advanced maths among school leavers’ portfolios of skills.
However, no one ever learned maths by not learning Irish. Those who persist in believing it to be the case should explain how far they are prepared to go to whittle away the range of their children’s education to promote a single subject. They might also usefully explain how these children will function in a world where a range of skills must be learned “on the go” over the course of their working lives. Better, surely, for children to start from broad base than some stripped-back, dumbed-down “Mini Cert”? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Every year we get people adding two and two and getting five.
Somehow John P O’Sullivan (August 19th) is blaming the teaching of Irish for the poorer maths results. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Our education system continues to process students at second-level primarily by means of rote learning.
As a concerned citizen, I believe it is an indictment of our so-called first-world secondary education system that so many students at third-level lack the basic skills of literacy and numeracy and the capacity to critically and analytically problem-solve.
The Minister of Education needs to radically overhaul our second-level system so that students are suitably prepared for the challenges of self-reliance and independent thinking which are key requirements in our third-level system, and indeed are essential values in the workplace. For too long, successive ministers have paid lip service to the implementation of change within our secondary and tertiary education systems.
Let’s see real change and then perhaps we can truly say that we have a first-world education system. – Yours, etc,