TEACHING MATTERS / PROF TOM COLLINS:Stolen childhood is a recurring theme in Irish society. This theme is most harrowingly depicted in the abuse cases in childcare institutions and other places.

The theme is also dealt with in the mythology of changelings, the poetry of Yeats and, in contemporary times, in the concerns about the sexualisation and commodification of children.

Many accounts of schooling in Irish 20th-century literature also deal with this theme. As Frank McCourt recounts in Angela's Ashes: "One master will hit you if you don't know that Eamon de Valera is the greatest man that ever lived. Another master will hit you if you don't know that Michael Collins was the greatest man that ever lived.

"Mr Benson hates America and you have to remember to hate America or he'll hit you. Mr O'Dea hates England and you have to remember to hate England or he'll hit you. If you ever say anything good about Oliver Cromwell they'll all hit you."

Irish primary teachers, most particularly in recent decades, have embarked on a process of returning childhood to children. The primary curriculum reforms made in the early 1970s have endeavoured to provide an environment that is child-centred, child-active, stimulating and safe.

The first aim of the curriculum is to "enable the child to live a full life and to realise his/her potential as a unique individual."

The first verb in the curriculum is "celebrate"- "the curriculum celebrates the uniqueness of the child." The feminisation of teaching, an issue some commentators are concerned about, has been a critical factor in transforming the primary experience and is to be greatly welcomed. It has underpinned a school experience that is more holistic and more attuned to the immediate developmental needs of the child.

The shift to a curriculum with a child-centred emphasis at primary level has not been replicated at post-primary level.

In the coming weeks, children in Leaving and Junior Certificate years will encounter a broad consensus, consisting of parents, teachers and the media, that places overwhelming significance and importance on the forthcoming examinations. The basis for this stance is not clear. The Junior Certificate exam has little relevance in the long-term development of the child's education or career.

Most teachers attest to the fact that while it is difficult to improve on a poor Junior Certificate at Leaving Certificate level, getting good Junior Certificate results by no means guarantees a similar result at Leaving Certificate level. The Junior Certificate is a poor indicator of things to come.

One is left suspecting that this examination's main purpose is to place pressure on students and teachers to attend to their work in an industrious, publicly transparent way. The inherent value of the work, however, is left open to question.

After the Junior Certificate, a minority of students in the second-level system will opt to participate in a transition year, a trend that elicits some mixed views.

Parents worry their children will pick up "bad habits" in transition year and may have difficulty settling back to the "real world" rigours of the Leaving Certificate afterwards.

Some commentators also worry that schoolchildren's encounter with work placement during transition year introduces them to part-time work which may distract them from their education goals as they move through the senior cycle and on to third level.

There is compelling evidence about the value of transition year. It introduces students to multiple learning opportunities and sources; it allows them to explore new learning avenues in self-directed, student-centred ways, it introduces students to the wider community and allows a more peer-based, respectful relationship between students and teachers to develop.

However, the fact that it is disconnected from the post-primary curricular mainstream means that its value is diminished. It is really a diversion, with students temporarily leaving the main thoroughfare for some interesting sightseeing in the side streets.

After a year, they rejoin the Leaving Certificate programme: the fun is over and the real work is about to begin. In this sense, the year is less a transitional process than an opt-out process.

The students' real work will be tested two years later in the Leaving Certificate exam. This exam's merits deserve mention. It is an extremely well-managed process. About 60,000 students typically sit seven subjects in a three-week period in the early summer.

Setting and supervising the exams, correcting the papers and collating the results is a gargantuan task that is handled with the utmost efficiency by the State Examinations Commission and, prior to that, by the Department of Education. Results are turned around on a pre-specified date, usually within two months of the exams.

The Leaving Cert's growing importance as an academic benchmark should not be underestimated. Its significance in this regard is likely to grow in a context where there are an increasing number of autonomous third-level bodies, a situation that makes the process of comparing the degrees that these institutions award less straightforward.

The examination, however, is becoming less significant in allocating third-level places because these places, other than on a small number of high-status courses, are no longer that scarce.

Furthermore, the National Qualifications Authority's work in recent years means that all applicants' route to third-level institutions has become more transparent, regardless of whether they sat the Leaving. From this viewpoint, Leaving Cert points no longer have the same value that they used to.

Therefore, from the perspective of a child's long-term chances, the significance of the Leaving Certificate has greatly diminished.

In spite of this, the Leaving Certificate still dominates the focus of the second-level system in Ireland.

In its current format, it does this in a way which, while rewarding work and capacity, is frequently disempowering to teachers and students alike.

Any examination that leaves large numbers of students, even those who achieve average grades, with a sense of being unable to learn, is particularly unsuitable to the emerging needs of both the individual and those of Irish society.

Prof Tom Collins is head of education at NUI Maynooth