Madam, - I am always amused at calls each year for the Leaving Cert to reflect the reality of the workplace to which our young people will be heading.
More project work, is one such annual call. I am not sure if any of these armchair educational reformers have any idea about how difficult it can be to motivate a 17 to 18-year-old student.
As a teacher of Leaving Cert history (we have a pre-submitted project worth 20 per cent of the marks), it amazed me how difficult it was to get students to take charge of their own work.
Asking them to go to their local library was like asking them to go to Canada. In most cases, I was reduced to providing them with the sources and in a third of cases the idea for the project.
The department had a deadline of April 28th, which has been largely ignored by the department and schools.
In my own school, projects were being handed in last week. I argued that a deadline should be a deadline but then you are told "they are only kids".
So before we go down the road of more project work let's be a little bit more realistic.
I am sure parents would agree with me that it can be hard to get teenagers to show any initiative. Some did but the vast majority were hand-held. Is that preparation for life? - Yours, etc,
JOHN MURPHY, Marlfield Close, Kiltipperway, Tallaght, Dublin 24.