Study guides for all Leaving and even Junior Cert subjects are big business with hundreds of thousands sold each year. But do they help or do they overburden students with too much information at a time when they should be revising?
There was a time when the Leaving Certificate was a matter for a student and his teacher. Now everybody's getting in on the action.
Apart from private tutoring, which Irish students avail of more frequently than any of their OECD counterparts (the term "grind" is not used in any other English-speaking country), Irish students are offered a suite of commercial products to spur them on in the points race. Grind schools, revision seminars, study-skill programmes, websites with online tutorials and newspaper supplements soak up every last moment of the student's precious time.
One of the most successful ventures in the commercialisation of the Leaving Cert is the development of the revision aid. These truncated textbooks take an entire subject and shed the superfluities, leaving only the essentials - how many marks and how to get them. Titles such as Less Stress More Success and Rapid Revision are walking off the shelves as panicky post-mocks students have last-minute epiphanies. At a fraction of the cost of a grind, these books promise to lift students up at least a grade and give much-needed structure to their final weeks of study.
Both Folens and Gill & Macmillan have been publishing these titles for more than a decade but they are only coming of age now. Teachers have started to recommend the guides or even put them on core booklists. Both publishers have brought out new titles this year to meet the demand for ever shorter and more concise versions. Several educational booksellers I contacted were completely sold out after the post-mocks rush.
"We brought out a 10-week rapid revision course for Leaving Cert French two months ago and it's selling by the thousands already," says John O'Connor of Folens. "Last year our biology title sold so well I'd estimate that 75 per cent of biology students had a copy by June. We are producing these titles in response to a demand from parents, students and teachers. They want material that is tightly focused on the exam and that clearly lays out the marking scheme requirements."
O'Connor attributes some of the boom in the sector to a five-year period of upheaval in the Leaving Cert curriculum. "There has been a great deal of syllabus change recently and it has left many teachers and students unsure of what to expect from the exams."
Peter Thew, marketing director with Gill & Macmillan, has watched the market for Leaving Cert "booster" products explode over the last decade. The company's Less Stress More Success and Short Cuts guides for Leaving Cert students sold almost 60,000 copies last year - that's roughly one copy for every student who sat the Leaving.
"Fifteen years ago this market didn't exist," says Thew. "Now there is significant money being spent on products and services designed to boost a student's exam performance. These books are not designed to replace textbooks, but I'm aware that in some schools they are being used in that way. We don't recommend it, but where teachers have a very broad syllabus to cover in a short period of time, something's got to give."
Retailing at an average of €9, revision books are considerably cheaper than core texts and a world away from the price of grinds. They offer students a structured approach to study at a time when panic and stress can cloud organised thinking.
Ultimately, however, a revision guide is just another book to add to the pile. Without a living, breathing, berating teacher on hand, are students really likely to apply themselves to the task?
Kilroy's College has created what it describes as a blend of grind school and revision aid. The college provides a 12-module programme of revision notes for each of the main Leaving Cert subjects. At the end of each module, students are tasked with an assignment which they post to a tutor for correction and guidance. The college has just introduced a six-week revision package for those who have already reached the panicky stage.
Patrick Kilroy, director of studies at Kilroy's College, believes that "whilst home-study tuition may not suit everyone, many students use it as real, alternative Leaving Certificate study option .It allows students to maximise all their spare time as study time. The feedback to students by experienced teachers on questions submitted provides very focused examination revision."
Teachers are getting to know the market and many have mixed views about the explosion in Leaving Cert merchandise.
"I don't recommend these publications, personally," says Shiela Parsons, Asti subject convenor for Leaving Cert English. "They don't encourage students to think for themselves. They just load more information onto students who are already freaking themselves out over all the material they have to get through. I really don't believe that students should be subjected to such an invasion of material."
Ger Curtin, Asti subject convenor for Leaving Cert physics, does not agree. "I do find value in these revision aids and suggest them to some students. They do a job that the textbooks don't and can be useful in the last term. That said, they are not a replacement for textbooks and I would never put them on a core booklist."
