What about advice like . . . leave the kids alone!

I’m quite sure that the fact that parents in my day asked a great deal less about how you had ‘done’ in your exams, and certainly never asked another parent how their youngsters had fared, reflected an altogether healthier attitude to the selfsame exams.

Not for one moment would I accept that because they asked less – or not at all – about the exams, that they cared less about their kids’ prospects. They cared every bit as much, but my belief is that they had an entirely more balanced approach to life . . . and what their youngsters might do in life.

Believe it or not, it was possible then for kids to go to their local school to sit their exams, without the morning news, and bulletins all day, poring over the exam papers and experts in the media preparing them with advice for the session to follow later that day, or the day following.

The nearest thing to that sort of attention to detail of papers was when teachers might meet the examination pupils on the way to, or from, the examination hall with a bit of advice, or a quick review of the possible questions. Yes, there were ‘tips’ about what might come up . . . but the entire country wasn’t following one potential poet, such as last week’s ‘bum tip’ in relation to Eavan Boland.

It was also possible for the teenagers to collect their results late in the Summer without radio, television and newspapers queued up outside schools for photos, and without special pullout supplements on what points were needed to ‘get’ medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, brain surgery, or to study astrophysics in Trinity.

Of course, there were also many things wrong with the system then. That was a time when not everyone was expected to be a graduate of Third Level – in fact, tens of thousands of kids went out into the workplace with few years even at second level, and with no expectation in society that they would require it. Many kids never achieved their true potential.

Then, along came Donough O’Malley as Minister for Education with an imaginative plan to see that every youngster got second level education.

Indeed, there were stories at the time of how the young minister announced details of the plan before they had been fully approved by Government so anxious was he to push ahead with the proposals, and in his determination that the scheme would not be shelved.Even with ‘free second level’ introduced, the vast majority of youngsters went out into the workplace at 17 and 18 without the benefit of Third Level.

As a consequence, whole sections of an entire generation went to places like the UK, and further afield, where they navvied for years and were probably held back by their lack of further education.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.