One of the country's few remaining Latin teachers has advised students to abandon the subject after calling this year's Leaving Cert papers unreasonable, extremely difficult and likely to confuse and disturb students.

"On the whole this paper was quite difficult and pupils thinking of doing Latin for the Leaving Certificate may look at it and decide to stay far clear of the subject," said Jim O'Dea, a Latin and classical studies teacher at Rathdown School in Glenageary, Co Dublin.

He said that while he did not want students to abandon the subject "if the SEC is trying to kill off Latin as a Leaving Certificate subject, then this was another milestone on the road to extinction.""

Mr O'Dea said the comprehension passage was extremely difficult and in no way familiar to students, with some sections more demanding than usual. Even the nice questions had a sting, he said.

On the ordinary level paper, he said that the comprehension was “far too difficult... it was very unreasonable and the Latin unseens were bordering on impossible for the limited number of students who take this paper.”

Only around 113 students studied Latin for the Leaving Cert this year.

Some 690 students sat the classical studies paper.

Mr O’Dea, also a classics teacher, said the higher level paper contained twists and was not as straightforward as expected. He said that the syllabus was in need of revision.

He questioned the marking scheme and the focus of some questions, especially on the ordinary level paper, but said that both levels were reasonably fair.

Classical studies, surprisingly, has one of the highest failure rates of all subjects, although this has improved somewhat in recent years.

*This article was amended on June 19 to included additional comments by Mr O'Dea.