Even with exams cancelled, there is no escaping the Leaving Cert nightmare

THERE is something about the Leaving Cert that has left an indelible mark on all who’ve endured it.

Even those of us not too bothered at the time still have had the recurring deep-sleep nightmare where the examination spawned by Satan comes back to haunt in some variation of surreal horror.

I sat mine in the mid-Seventies and while all those around me fretted and chewed their nails to the quick, I studied little and cared less.

This wasn’t because I had worked out what came next, but more out of a hazy indifference that must have been inexplicable to my parents and school but made perfect sense to me.

But shabbily as I did in the Leaving Cert – two honours and a few dodgy Ds in pass papers – I would have been in much deeper sewage if predictive marking had been forced on the process.

That’s because many of my teachers loathed me and, with the benefit of a hindsight which has matured over time, I can appreciate why.

I was the irritating noise at the very back of the class with all the smart answers.

These were not, unfortunately, the sort of answers that were any use in an exam. My betters queued up to tell me that.

If the staff room had any power or say over my Leaving Cert results more than a few within its forbidding walls would have been very tempted to exact a measure of revenge.

This State test can be cruel, a harsh eat-and-regurgitate mode of learning that turns out near-automatons and is suited to a certain type of intelligence and anathema to others.

It has other inbuilt inequalities too, not least the ability of the children of the better-off to thrive at the expense of the rest.

But it’s fair in one crucial aspect at least.

Every student who sits at a wobbly desk in that tense examination hall is nothing more than a unique number and neither bile nor favour has the remotest chance of interfering with the outcome.

You get what you deserve when it’s down to just question, pen, paper and a ticking clock.

This year teachers, despite their best intentions, may be tempted to favour one student over another, while doting parents – naturally far less inclined to subscribe to the rules of due diligence – won’t be able to resist interfering.

I shudder to think how it might all pan out.

The class of 2020 may not have the same repeat midlife nightmares as the rest of us, but something tells me they’ll have recurring bad dreams of their very own.