Ireland. You Couldn't Make This Place Up! Part 17

an capall

an capall

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About 2 weeks ago in Navan, Co Meath, there was a horrific accident when a school bus crashed, and five teenagers lost their lives. Many were badly injured.
It deeply effected the country - losing 5 kids like that, and there was genuine grieving.

Fast forward to today and the beginning of the State exams - Junior (GCSE), Exam, English. Essay - Choice of Topic 1.

'Travelling on The School Bus'
 
Dear God - I hope someone got their crass arse thoroughly kicked. We had much coverage of it here, AC, and I have to say I shed tears at the destruction of these young lives.
 
There would have been no problem changing the exam paper, as they always have a second on reserve if they feel some of the questions have leaked out.
 
Crikey, that one certainly slipped the net. It's certainly very crass and bound to upset more than a few people - and by that I mean kids who open the exam paper, not just the general population. It was a horrible accident; I was watching the news when the first newsflashes started coming in and the scene was dreadful. It must have been devastating for all the poor people involved, both directly and indirectly.
 
Today was the Irish language exam. Candidates at four secondary schools in the Navan area opened their exam papers to find an essay topic had been scribbled out and a new title inserted.

The blacked out topic was 'Timpiste Bothair'* and this had been replaced with 'An Telefis'**.

* 'Timpiste Bothair' = THE ROAD ACCIDENT!

** An Telefis = The Television.

I kid ye not.
 
To quote Ian Smith, long-past PM of the equally long-past Rhodesia: "This would be comic, were it not so tragic."

Are these loonies trying to totally traumatize these kids out of any chance of concentrating and passing the bloody exams? It's a shame they didn't just rip up the papers and walk out en masse. On the one hand over here, we have bureaucratic tittupping around every possible trivial scenario in the name of political correctness, while over your way the Exam Board seems to be mining a particularly rich vein of brutal insensitivity to something that really does matter.
 
For flucks sake An, I hadn't heard that. Absolutely comical, absolute bloody jokers,

It's no wonder that the education system in this country is a bloody shambles when you meet or encounter some of the genii who are makin the decisions. Astonishin.
 
The exam board or whatever they are called did make a fair point. If you are going to have real life topics in the exam it is liable to bring a negative emotional response out of some group of people.

For example, with the Irish paper question - The Road Accident - even had the school bus incident not taken place, there would have been students sitting the paper who would have recently lost family or friends in a crash. Put Up Alcohol as a topic and there would be some poor sod who had witnessed her mother being abused by her drunken father etc.

On reflection, I would say it was a tad insensitive to leave in the topic, but maybe not the atrocity my immediate reaction had believed it to be.
 
Mel - you have a good point and I abhor censorship, nanny states and political correctness.

However asking Meath kids to write on Travelling by School Bus and follow that up with a disscussion on Road Accidents at this point is a bit grim and dim.

Bit like asking an Utd fan to write an essay on the Champions League Final, 2005.
 
Mel, absolutely - you can't kid-glove young people, though I doubt there are many young folk around who aren't aware of some sort of social horrors, whether directly or through tv programmes. In this PARTICULAR instance, though, perhaps a bit of lateral thinking (now there's a topic for them!) would've been in order. It would be like asking Scottish exam-takers to sit down to 'Flying By Aeroplane' or 'Why I'd Like to be a Pilot' shortly after Lockerbie.
 
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