Killarney

<p>By Michelle Crean</p>
<h3>After multiple years of disrupted education local students are calling for hybrid State exams this year.</h3>
<p>Many say they feel under pressure having missed school days due to COVID-19 and feel a hybrid exam would suit them better.ISSU conducted a nationwide survey last week with 40,000 students saying they&#8217;d prefer a hybrid alternative.</p>
<p>St Brendan&#8217;s College student Kacper Bogalecki, who is a National&nbsp;ISSU representative, says he has spoken to students from Killarney schools, and their message is clear that &#8220;changes must be made&#8221;.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is clear to me that the students do not want the Leaving Cert to go ahead as planned,&#8221; he told the Killarney Advertiser.</p>
<p>&#8220;Many feel under a lot of pressure, having missed school because of COVID-19, many suggest the &#8220;hybrid model&#8221; as their preferred outcome for the 2022 Leaving Cert. Many also feel that additional changes should be made to the written exams &#8211; similar to what last year&#8217;s cohort received. They highlighted to me how the pandemic has affected their senior cycle education as a whole pointing out remote learning last year as well as this year&#8217;s substitution crisis as a major cause for this reasoning. Some students, those living in a rural community, said that having online learning whilst being in Fifth Year caused many to be disadvantaged over simply having an unstable Internet connection.</p>
<p>The accommodations that were made for our cohort in August are simply not enough, he added.</p>
<p>&#8220;This very much mirrors the results of the nationwide survey ISSU recently conducted where 67.81% of respondents indicated a hybrid model as their first preference and when including second preferences this rose 84.81% of Sixth Year students rating this option favourably. It is evident that they do not want a &#8220;traditional&#8221; Leaving Certificate exam. At this point in time many Leaving Certificate students are looking for an answer, some clarity for what their exams will look like.&#8221;</p>
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<p>When it comes to the Junior Cycle Exams, he said he received a lot of feedback from students who wanted to have the choice of sitting an exam in June as opposed to last year where the Junior Certificate/Cycle exams did not proceed.</p>
<h3>STUDENTS&#8217; OPINION</h3>
<p>&ldquo;I personally believe that a hybrid model would be the correct option for this year&rsquo;s Leaving Cert,&#8221; Andrew Moynihan, a Sixth Year St Brendan&rsquo;s College student, said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Nearly my entire Senior Cycle from Transition Year to today has been in a global pandemic. Therefore, to consider our Leaving Cert a &ldquo;Normal Leaving Cert&rdquo; would be grossly unfair on all students. The hybrid model would alleviate much of the stress laid upon us right now.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Peter Walsh, also a student in Sixth Year in St Brendan&rsquo;s College, said he feels it&#8217;s important to understand that their time in Senior Cycle hasn&rsquo;t been traditional.</p>
<p>&#8220;We shouldn&rsquo;t have to do a traditional Leaving Cert. We have missed several weeks last year as well having to suffer through the substitution crisis. I have also been impacted on a personal level as I missed school at the start of this year. I hope that the work I have put in for the last two years is accounted for and that it isn&rsquo;t all down to one exam, especially due to our current circumstances. I would like to see a hybrid model introduced to satisfy the needs of the majority of the student population.&rdquo;</p>


"Changes must be made" to State exams

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