All your education questions answered by Brian Mooney.
Technology is to be introduced in 2007 for examination in the Leaving Cert for the first time in June 2009. Most students due to enter fifth year in September 2007 will shortly have to select their subjects for the Leaving Cert. When will the relevant third-level institutions adjust their course entry requirements to take account of the introduction of technology? What types of courses are likely to accept the subject? Could it be accepted as a substitute for one of the physical sciences?
I have approached all the third-level colleges within the CAO regarding their acceptance of the subject technology for entry purposes. The National University of Ireland (NUI) has indicated that technology will be accepted as one of the six Leaving Cert subjects required for matriculation in the NUI constituent universities and recognised colleges. A number of institutes of technology have indicated that they envisage technology been accepted for entry purposes and being most suitable for computer and business information systems programmes.
None of the colleges I contacted indicated that they would consider technology as a substitute subject in place of a physical science. The registrar of NUI stated that Leaving Cert technology would not satisfy the laboratory science subject requirement for matriculation in the following areas: agriculture, engineering and architecture, science, food science and engineering, food science and technology, medicine (including dentistry), science, and veterinary medicine. The registrar indicated that the approved laboratory science subjects are chemistry, physics, biology, physics-with- chemistry, and agricultural science. She pointed out that the existing Leaving Cert subjects engineering, construction studies and technical drawing do not satisfy the requirement to present a laboratory science subject.
As a parent of two teenagers, it seems very difficult to comprehend that suicide can be an issue in the lives of young people. Surely the teenage years are times of fun and explorations of the hopes and dreams? How can a teenager be suicidal?
In part, that is exactly the problem. It is widely believed that childhood is free from the stress and problems of adult life and a time for fun. However, the teenage world is a much different place now than it was. We live in an information-packed and high-stress society. Competition for success in personal relationships, coupled with academic expectations can be intense for a young person. Teenagers are expected to go to school full time, participate in school activities and manage to get their household duties and homework done as well.
You might ask, what is so different from the teenage experience of today's parents?
We now live in a highly materialistic society, where there is an expectation among the young to have significant resources. Some feel it is essential to work 20 to 25 hours a week in their "part-time" job to achieve this. Their social lives are squeezed into the gaps between all of the above, which can lead to very late nights, where alcohol plays a major role as a social lubricant.
The expectations placed on teenagers in our society can be difficult to handle, as teenagers have not yet developed the range of skills needed to deal with these stresses. A loss that seems trivial to an adult can become life threatening to a teenager. In addition, they need to solve the problem fast, as they have been raised in a culture obsessed with "now". Failure to find instant solutions can lead to young people self-harming and worse.
Brian Mooney is the former president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors. E-mail questions to bmooney@irish- times.ie
