This morning, thousands of students across the country begin their Leaving Cert exams, kicking off with the familiar English paper one.
It doesn’t matter how old you are, most of us still clearly remember our Leaving Cert and for many, dreams about that high-stress period during the final year of secondary school are a regular occurrence, particularly when June roles around.
But could the Leaving Cert, as we’ve come to know it over the years, soon become a thing of the past? And what will a new improved version look like?
In March, Minister for Education Norma Foley announced that a major reform of the Leaving Cert was being planned from 2024 onwards which would include the spreading of project work and exams over fifth and sixth year.
These planned changes could reshape our entire Leaving Cert system and finally bring an end to the rote learning and the memorisation tests so many of us endured in order to get into college.
However, overhauling the Leaving Cert, which has existed since 1925, is expected to move slowly with changes likely to take years rather than months.
Children currently in their early years of primary school may be lucky enough to sit the full new Leaving Cert by the time they’re 18, Irish Times education editor Carl O’Brien told In The News. “That’s how long we’re talking about. Nothing happens quickly when it comes to curriculum reform.”
Meanwhile, thousands of students who spent much of fifth year studying remotely from home will sit the traditional Leaving Cert exam over the coming weeks – an examination system many in this country still view as “brutal but fair”.
“It is brutal but it’s not fair,” Professor Anne Looney of Dublin City University told the podcast. In reality, many people quietly support the Leaving Cert because it’s a “reasonably accurate sorting out the deserving from the undeserving”, she added.
In The News is presented by Sorcha Pollak and Conor Pope and produced by Declan Conlan, Suzanne Brennan and Jennifer Ryan.
This podcast was originally broadcast in November 2021.
