Telling the young their results don’t matter is just stupid
THE Leaving Cert matters. If I see one more social media status proclaiming that the Leaving Cert doesn’t matter from a smug, successful, middle-aged adult talking about how they failed the State exams but life worked out fine for them and Albert Einstein, I will scream into a black hole.
I know Richard Branson didn’t pass his exams either and it didn’t do him any harm, but we need to stop telling young people that the Leaving Cert doesn’t matter. It matters.
For the 55,000 students who sat their Leaving Cert in June, this week is one that will potentially change their lives forever.
Across Ireland young people are finding out if they’ve got their college course of choice or not. They’re finding out whether they’ve lived up to their hoped-for marks and if their work paid off the way they’d hoped it would.
A few years ago that was me. I woke from a restless night to find that I had got the course I wanted.
After thousands of pages of coursework and notes and exam questions, it was finally over. I’d got the marks I’d needed, but not everyone does and this week will be the same.
There will inevitably be young people who will feel disappointed by how they did.
Some young people will find that their hard work didn’ t translate into the points they needed. They’ll be devastated. Well-meaning grown-ups will try to comfort them. “It doesn’t matter,” they’ll say. “Such and such celebrity never wentto university and look at them now,” they’ll say.
This isn’t helpful. Because when you wake up to find that five years of hardwork hasn’t paid off, it’s heartbreaking. When you
discover that your life isn’t going to work out exactly the way you’d wanted, it hurts.
When you’re handed a piece of paper that seems to say “must try harder”, it’s devastating.
The Leaving Cert exams are hard. Juggling seven or eight subjects, crazy amounts of coursework and long, difficult exams, all while trying to learn how to be a grown-up, is very hard.
Throw in the increase in anxiety levels in young people and the added pressures of social media and it’s small wonder young people finish their school days a nervous wreck.
Then for those people who hold up examples such as Richard Branson as some working-class hero, think about the many, many more that have never risen to those exceptional heights.
Yes, he is exceptional and so is his story. He isn’t the rule.
Despite wanting to go to Oxford to study languages, JK Rowling (left) didn’t get in. Her life worked out better but only the very few will become best-selling children’s writers.
The option of trying again and repeating the Leaving isn’t available to everyone. There are many children whose parents just can’t afford to pay for them to retake exams that they fail or send them to fancy grind schools. These students literally cannot afford to fail.
Meanwhile, the austerity years have removed many of our social nets for young people. The dole for those aged 18 to 24 is a measly €107.70 per week.
The housing waiting lists, homelessness crisis and rocketing private rents mean that people in their twenties can’t expect decent, affordable places to live.
THE number of young people aged 18 to 24 experiencing homelessness in Ireland has increased by 85pc in the past three years. In April, there were 924 young people counted in the official figures in Ireland. The youth unemployment rate in Ireland was 11.4pc in June. Add the rise and rise of unpaid internships to the mix and it’s a fairly bleak picture for young people.
Of course, the Leaving Cert results are not the most important thing in the world and they don’t measure a person’s worth.
Leaving Cert results don’t recognise that you’re kind and generous and passionate about the environment.
They don’t recognise the obstacles you’ve faced in your life. But when you’re 18 and you’ve spent five years slogging through secondary school, the Leaving Cert can feel like it’s the whole world.
This week young people are allowed to feel happy, to wallow, to feel gutted and to feel sad.
I don’t know how to make our education system better but I think it lies in placing more focus on perseverance, grit, to grasp the reality that setbacks happen, and sometimes we fail, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying again and doing our best in everything we do.
It also lies in having adequate safety nets for young people who need a bit more help from society.