Letter to the Editor: You are extending our stress and anxiety
As a 6th-year student, it is with great displeasure that I am addressing you today about the recent decision made about the Leaving cert exams.
You who were appointed to make wise decisions for all students in this country have failed. We entrusted you as the Government of this nation to make decisions that would benefit all. I know it is impossible to please everyone, but it is, however, possible to please most people.
I know a few students may be satisfied with the decision made but many are greatly disheartened.
Personally speaking, my mother is a nurse in St James’s Hospital working in the front lines against the current epidemic. As you know, many of these people fighting on the front lines are dying.
One thing you may have forgotten about superheroes is that they risk their lives doing their job and my mother is one of these people. As of April 13, there have been 365 deaths.
I belong to an Indian church in Dublin and all the women (and some men) are nurses. As immigrants to Ireland, we have no family here, therefore these are the people I consider to be my family, I even call them “aunty” and “uncle”.
If anything were to happen to even one of these people, I would be in no state to do my exams this coming August and currently, there are a few who are positive for the virus. Hence, I am greatly disappointed that the Government has not taken my situation into account.
I’m aware that situations of family members or friends passing away have occurred to a small number of students in previous years but this time the number of students facing this catastrophe has increased.
No other year has gone through a pandemic like we have, and I believe we should get an exception to the tradition that quite frankly needs to be broken.
I did my research and found out that the Leaving Cert has been around for 95 years! How can we as a so-called “developed country” be using the same system since 1925. It’s unfathomable and shameful.
This was our last summer that has been robbed by both the epidemic and the Government. Seeing the statistics now, we may have had to spend most of summer at home but at least we would have been able to do it with our families and spend time with the people that we love because we never know when they can be taken away from us.
Instead, we will be locked up in a room, forced to study in the scorching heat that summer will bring. There was a lot that I personally had been looking forward to in school like my graduation, the sixth-year prank, my final sports day and awards ceremony.
The previous years have had the chance to do all that with the friends before moving on to a new chapter in their lives and we have been robbed of that. They even got the chance to be taught by their teachers for the most crucial time of the year whereas we have been robbed.
How can you assess us in the same way?
Not only have you kept the exams going during these heart-breaking times, but you have extended the anxiety and stress that comes with these exams.
The suicide rates in Ireland are ever-increasing and we happen to be one of the highest in the EU, but what have you done to change that?
Almost 10% of students drop out from school and once again you have done nothing but encouraged this statistic to increase.
I urge you to seek the opinions of the students, it is a democracy after all. As Dalai Lama once said, “Happiness is the highest form of health”.
Jemie Mary Sajeev,
6th Year student,
Coláiste Pobail Setanta
