Sir, - Recent coverage of the Junior Certificate results with a view to the need to preserve, protect or pulverise the native language (September 17th and 18th) may surely be dismissed as less than generous scare-mongering. It completely ignored a sizeable percentage of the 59,095 candidates and revolved around a relatively insignificant examination.
For what it's worth, the percentage of students doing honours Irish at this level rose from 40 per cent in 1998 to 41 per cent in 1999 and a whopping 77.8 per cent of these 24,235 students achieved honours (compared with 76 per cent in honours mathematics and 74 per cent in honours English). Indeed, the percentage of As in the honours paper rose from 6.8 per cent in 1998 to 11.1 per cent in 1999 and the percentage of Bs rose from 21.8 in 1998 to 30.2 in 1999.
Obviously, statistics may be massaged for whatever political purpose is in mind; and avoidance of the entire picture in this instance suggests that the real issue is being avoided. - Is mise,
Dr Charles J. O'Sullivan, Sunnyside Avenue, Gaol Walk, Western Road, Cork.