Bonus points for doing Leaving Cert. through Irish- get rid of them!!!!!

[Sailor]

An exam in, for example physics, is supposed to test your knowledge of that subject - not your ability to regurgitate that knowledge in a different language.

[MrD011]

An exam in, for example physics, is supposed to test your knowledge of that subject - not your ability to regurgitate that knowledge in a different language.

Ah yes, but its not a different language , Irish is our Native language and i suppose if your fluent in it , it doesn't seem any different to speaking english but i wouldn't know because the way it is taught in english schools leaves you completely baffled as to string a few words together.

[Sailor]

Ah yes, but its not a different language , Irish is our Native language and i suppose if your fluent in it , it doesn't seem any different to speaking english but i wouldn't know because the way it is taught in english schools leaves you completely baffled as to string a few words together.

As far as I am concerned Engllish is my native language. It is the language of my parents, grandparents and great grandparents - most of whom hadn't a word of Irish. It is the language in which I heard and spoke my first words. How anybody can discount all of this and claim that Irish is my native language is beyond me.

[J.V.STALIN]

Nonsense, these bonus points only exist on paper, they are never applied. I went to all Irish primary and seconday, and took my leaving cert(honours) through Irish. The hilarious thing was that three of my friends, in english schools, with poor Irish got higher marks than I did in Irish. Hilarious!
.

The bonus does apply, but its a sliding scale.
The reason that you got lower marks than your English educated friends was more than likely due to the corrector. You must understand that the if the corrector is correcting all Gaelscoil papers, then the standard is generally higher, and so the marking is stricter. This happened in my leaving cert - i got better irish marks than many people whom i knew in a gaelcolaiste

I would be in favour of scrapping the bonus points - its unfair to people who put in the same amount of work or more only to get less marks because of what language the did the exam in. Its downright discrimination.

[daveL]

Nonsense, these bonus points only exist on paper, they are never applied. I went to all Irish primary and seconday, and took my leaving cert(honours) through Irish. The hilarious thing was that three of my friends, in english schools, with poor Irish got higher marks than I did in Irish. Hilarious!
Also honours physics, which I sat, I got a whole grade lower, a 'C', even though when I tallied my answers with the answers from paper, I was borderline 'A'. So, sorry the bonus never applies. Really you should get 10% of the marks you did not get. i.e. If you got 70% in your exam, you would be due 10% of the 30% you did not get, i.e. 3%. So doing your exam through Irish would bump you up to 73%. That is how is works I believe. The bonus should be kept and should be applied, but it is not generally, AFAIK.

and how do you know that about your physics paper?

I smell bullsh!t

[Fun with Irish]

No idea - but i am damn certain the native language is favored, insisted on, required.

This point has been proclaimed by every political regime since 1922 and since 1922 it has always faced one logical difficulty - the
Irish nation is quite clearly English-speaking.

[Fun with Irish]

I would be in favour of scrapping the bonus points - its unfair to people who put in the same amount of work or more only to get less marks because of what language the did the exam in. Its downright discrimination.

Of course bonus points are discriminatory. That's the reason of having them.

The NCCA recommended years ago that the bonus points be dropped but the Fianna Fail Minister for Education Mary Hanafin stomped on them. Hard!

[Fun with Irish]

Since when? It has always been 10% of the marks that you did NOT get. If this has changed then when was this change announced? Surely there would have had to be an announcement for such a major change to the marking system.

Those who are guarding these political rewards systems tend not to talk too much about them in public. They don't like to remind the peasants how they're being screwed.

[Toman13]

I for one was open to the argument that students in Irish schools should have all of their textbooks available in Irish before the bonus points were dropped.

On more reflection and after re-reading this article last year by Kate Holmquist in The Irish Times I now am in favour of getting rid of them.

Students in Irish schools have generally spent at least five or six years in an all-Irish education system. Indeed the majority of them would have probably gone to all-Irish primary schools also.

The vast majority of them would be very fluent. And for those who aren't, well it must be their fault that they are not unless they have some kind of intellectual disability, seriously.

So given that the vast majority of students in second-level Irish schools are very fluent in Irish why should they get bonus points???

No.

[Spirit Of Newgrange]

the UK public sector has been effectively taken over by immigrants , lets keep irish to keep the foreigners out.