Leaving Cert economics paper ‘veered off the curriculum’

Leaving Cert economics students faced a higher-level paper that included broad and unusual questions that veered off the curriculum and had limited relevance to what they had studied, according to teachers.

Bairbre Kennedy, an economics teacher at Malahide Community School in Dublin, said the difficulty of some of the questions reduced choice for students and the higher-level paper did not provide students with opportunities to draw from their knowledge of current affairs.

Ms Kennedy said a short question on the flooding crisis, which asked students to outline two possible economic effects on home insurance premiums, required a lot of lateral thinking.

Further on in the paper, students were asked to explain how the Republic’s GDP could be affected by an oil spill off the Irish coast.

“They were essentially being asked to show that they had a good knowledge of national income theory, but they may not have known what the examiners were looking for here,” said Ms Kennedy, who is an ASTI subject representative.

Question seven was particularly tough, she said.

Here, students were asked to outline two economic policies that the Irish government could consider to address inequality in the State, but students may not have been clear what type of inequality was being referenced.

Another part of the same question asked students about how reducing inequality may make it difficult for the Government to achieve other economic aims.

“It was not explicit what was being asked for here, and the marking scheme will hopefully reflect this,” she said.

A third part of the same question asked students to outline what actions could be taken to protect the environment.

Ms Kennedy said that, while more links between the environment and the economic value of natural resources is welcome, this question seemed more suited to a geography paper and lacked any economic context.

Urbanisation

Another question, which asked about the consequences of urbanisation, also seemed more suited to the geography paper.

Ms Kennedy said five of the eight long questions were approachable and straightforward, but that there was a lack of topical issues, even though economics students are normally advised to read the newspapers and listen to the news.

Ray O’Loughlin, an economics teacher at the Institute of Education, said that the higher-level paper was fairly well-balanced but that it contained a lot of non-textbook material.

He said students may have been turned off by a question on the impact of a large US firm entering the EU market and that this year’s macroeconomic questions were particularly testing.

Both he and Ms Kennedy said that many of the questions were more suited to third-level.

Topical issues including the economics of homelessness, Metro north and the impact of smoking on healthcare costs appeared on the ordinary-level paper.

Ms Kennedy said that students would have been able for the paper if they listened to the news. However, ordinary-level students tend to be less engaged with the news than their higher-level classmates.

Just under 5,900 students sat the economics paper, including 735 at ordinary-level.

TRY THIS AT HOME:

Leaving Cert economics, higher-level paper:

Explain how Ireland’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could be affected by any two of the following.

(i) An increase in child benefit payments.

(ii) A foreign-owned company, operating in Ireland, sends back to their home country all the profits they have earned in Ireland.

(iii) An oil spill off the Irish coast costs the Irish Government significant clean-up costs.