U-turn confusion exposes lack of planning
ASt he fiasco that was the 2020 Leaving Cert drew to an undignified close there was but one crumb of comfort for those who would follow, for the class of 2021: It couldn’ t possibly be that bad again.
They had seen the impact on their predecessors, saw how the on-off uncertainty surrounding exams which were confirmed, moved forward and then finally cancelled had pushed their peers almost to breaking point.
They had looked on, aghast, as the calculated grades system spat out results arbitrarily, favouring some over others and reducing living, breathing, panicking students into binary numbers.
But they gained solace in the knowledge that lessons had been learned, that the class of 2020 were an outlier, the unfortunate ones caught in the eye of the storm.
And when the schools reopened in September it seemed like normal business had resumed. True, life inside those familiar corridors had changed markedly, there were masks, pods and a sense of eerie unfamiliarity, hand sanitising, one-way corridors and staggered entry times.
At least they were in class though, with their teachers, availing of the one-to-one interactions so crucial at this point in their development.
Better still, they had received confirmation their exams would be going ahead, from no less an authority than the Taoiseach. Okay, so he said the same last year, but no-one knew what was going on last year.
This year he and Minister for Education, Norma Foley, had a plan. The details of that plan remained unclear but it ended with a roomful of students quietly scanning the contents of English Paper 1 some day in the summer, and that was all that mattered.
Yet all it took for that plan to be scattered to the wind was a rise in positive cases. The schools, which had appeared impregnable, were shut once more.
If it had ended there it wouldn’t have been so bad, the students, teachers and parents could have been fooled into believing the plan was still on track, that this was but a mere bump in the road.
But there was a proviso in the plan, a puzzling one: Leaving Cert students were to return to class for three days a week, the rest would remain at home. This came totally out of leftfield. Had it been part of the plan all along or was it possible they were simply making it up as they went along?
Either way the backlash was unpleasant. Students threatened to strike, schools vowed to shut their doors and teachers wondered how they were going to teach classes at home and in school and also care for their own children.
A couple of days later we had evidence that this hadn’t been part of the plan at all when ASTI (Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland) said it was advising its members not to attend class the following week.
The Minister was forced into an embarrassing U-turn, the three-day week was scrapped and we ended up right back where we started.
The question is why weren’t ASTI consulted before the Government announced its decision to partially reopen the schools? Why weren’t the TUI (Teachers Union of Ireland)?
Why weren’t the school principals, the teachers, the parents, anyone? But more than that, much more than that, why weren’t the students?
Time and time again, since the beginning of the pandemic, those at the heart of this issue have been reduced to the role of bystanders, their future played out on television screens, radio waves and the column inches of papers like this.
Would any other cohort of people be treated so shabbily? Most Leaving Cert students are at least 17 years old, many are 18 or older. They are not children, they are young adults, old enough to vote, to drive, to drink, and old enough to be consulted on a situation which will affect them long after Micheál Martin and Norma Foley move onto something else.
But as far as the debate on the state examinations goes they may as well not exist. And when the final decisions are made and the plan is unveiled in all its majestic glory you can bet they will be the last to know. Their only recourse may be to take vengeance at the next election.