Sir, - As a primary school teacher with 26 years' teaching experience, and as a parent, I am totally disillusioned that a Minister for Education would even suggest that it is possible to prepare for and to mark State exams without the involvement of trained, highly experienced personnel working daily in the field of education.
Any reasonable person must surely understand that years of practical experience, in any field, cannot be replaced by one short "intensive training period".
I urge the National Parents Council to please think again about the Minister's reassurances. The notion that any graduates with some time on their hands could read themselves into the second-level curriculum in less than six weeks is beyond belief. The reassurance that the exams will be corrected "to the highest degree of integrity" is just not possible. - Yours, etc.,
E. McNabb, Tullow, Co Carlow.