Sir, - I agree with Maire Geoghegan Quinn (Opinion, August 29th). While the points system itself is an efficient and fair means of allocating university places, a broader question remains unanswered regarding the priorities of the Leaving Cert students, their teachers and their parents, and the general approach to education in this country.
Perhaps the confusion relates to phraseology. Education seems to have been mistaken for training. for preparing teenagers for a rotelearning exam which will lead to either further training, or to a job. The notion of education as a means of personal development, enlightenment and enjoyment has largely been ignored, silenced in part by demoralised, bullying teachers, misinformed parents and paranoid students. In the meantime, the disgraceful hype regarding the exam continues, spread by the media and by some of those private grind schools who profit so well from the insecurity of their customers.
At the receiving end of all the froth and sabre-rattling are a collection of 16- 17- and 18-yearolds. They cannot be expected to possess the sense of perspective necessary to discriminate between reality and exaggeration and, instead of enjoying the first carefree years of their adult lives, they acquire a mind-set in which the winner takes all and everyone else is a loser. Most secondary students attend schools which are, on the whole, depressing, institutional and authoritarian. requiring them to wear impractical, uncomfortable uniforms dating back to the designs of medieval English boys' schools.
So why isn't somebody else telling them otherwise: that life does exist beyond and around the Leaving Cert; that not every wealthy, successful or happy person in Ireland attended college or got 23 A1s in their Leaving; that a person's human value cannot be assessed solely by a three-hour memory test? Surely this is part of the responsibility of our teachers. But then, of course, the idea that teachers should have any degree of responsibility for their professional and personal performance has long been stifled by their all-powerful unions, putting the teacher first and the pupil last. How many teachers were sacked from their positions in the past 10 years, in comparison with other similar professions? Maybe this is part of the problem. - Yours, etc.,
Chris Morris Jnr,
Claremont Road,
Howth,
Co Dubin.