Sir, – I am disheartened at the news that students in the new junior cycle programme can pass by scoring as little as 20 per cent in their written examinations ("Students who get 20 per cent will pass junior cycle exams under new reforms", February 16th).
Such a stance by the Department of Education will only add greater strain to our already creaking education system by allowing more and more pupils who are having severe difficulty in their studies to progress to the Leaving Certificate, surely having a knock-on effect that will lead to reduced standards in that examination as well. In turn, this will most certainly also affect our already overcrowded third-level institutions. Such a move ignores wider issues of why students are having difficulties in the first place, and amounts to ignoring the problem rather than directly addressing it. – Yours, etc,
JORDAN MARKEY,
Carrickmacross,
Co Monaghan.