`Why is assessment of 15-year-olds still based on regurgitated facts in written exams?" Oddly enough, that front-page teaser to the two-page Education & Living cover story of October 19th did not find an answer in the story.

We were treated to a parade of familiar explanations for the persistence of the Junior Cert written exams. But not one of the explanations discussed the possible answer: is it because facts regurgitation in written form is too important not to have a central role in mid-teens' exams?

Oddly enough, all those who fault written regurgitation owe their jobs, incomes and status to the excellence with which they achieve in that respect. What is a professor of education but a person who did well in written exams? What is a teacher or a journalist but a person who did likewise?

Are they suggesting that their education was defective on that account? If not, why presume that that of others may have been or may be?

They would probably not be too happy to be called brilliant regurgitators. But that is what they are. That is what I am, in so far as I am competent. I would not be happy with that description, except that my work on reading has got me to reflect on what reurgitation entails. I now accept that readers are regurgitators, that poor ones are poor regurgitators and fast ones fast regurgitators.

Perhaps the equation of vomiting with regurgitation has misled sensitive middle-class types. Birds who regurgitate to feed their young are not vomiters. They provide nourishing food which they (a) collected with much deliberation, (b) digested to the degree needed to be easily swallowed and digested by young bodies and (c) allocated fairly among its recipients.

In fact, good teachers are regurgitators, as are good politicians, writers, parents and so on. Our present Minister for Education and Science is a particularly good regurgitator.

In short, regurgitation is communication. Those who train to perform well in exams train to be good communicators. Teachers help them, first by way of (a), (b) and (c) themselves as they present, and then by showing them how to (a), (b) and (c) as they present in exams. Class tests monitor regurgitation skill in the various subjects.

NO MATTER how monitoring is done, it has to test regurgitation. The three-hour exam, with examinees totally dependent on what they can regurgitate from their own memories, is the supreme test of the skill.

Of course, exams are much dependent on how one feels on one day and for a three-hour period. But so are football matches, interviews and the few seconds of an Olympic race. Three-hour exams are invaluable training for life's many challenges.

It is true that written exams are biased in favour of those who regurgitate well enough to write well. (The very act of writing is a regurgitation process wherein words are produced for sequential presentation of thoughts, spellings are produced for words, and hands move to draw letters.)

But life is also so biased. Good writers may readily train themselves to write well, if they have not done so by their mid-teens.

Both regurgitation overall and writing are skills which schooling may develop. Fifteen-year-olds have had 11 years during which to develop both. Those who have not done so well have shortchanged themselves or been shortchanged by their parents and/or teachers.

Without the incentive of important written exams at the mid-teen stage, more are likely to be shortchanged.

The marvellous thing about regurgitation skill is that the more others do not develop it, the more those who do gain lifelong. Besides, it can be developed privately, regardless of whether or not public education fosters it.