On Wednesday, 45 students in Tripoli, Libya, will begin the Leaving Cert. Louise Holden reports.
Col Muammar Gadafy's Green Book or Patrick Kavanagh's Green Fool? One Libyan school has opted for the latter and its 45 final-year students will sit the Irish Leaving Certificate in Tripoli on Wednesday.
In 50-degree desert heat the students of the International School will sweat over Wicklow topography and William Butler Yeats.
The ISM international school was founded in 1958 for expatriate pupils whose parents work in the oil business, medical field and the diplomatic community. When the school expanded to include older students in 1995, a new exam system was required.
Having studied the final exam programmes of many countries including the US, UK and Canada, ISM school officials settled on the Irish Leaving Certificate as the best option for their multiethnic student body.
"We have students from 52 countries studying at our school," says ISM principal Donna McPhee. "The Irish Leaving Certificate programme offered us the kind of academic standard and subject spread that we were looking for. As a Canadian myself, I consider the Irish secondary education curriculum to be far superior to the Canadian, US or UK models."
Ms McPhee contends there has been a significant "dumbing down" of secondary education in many jurisdictions. The Irish exam system maintains rigorous academic standards, in her view.
"In many countries the standard of examination has been lowered to accommodate weaker students," she says.
"However, less rigorous academic programmes of education are not serving the stronger students."
The ISM school sits on a five-acre campus in the Hay Andulus suburb of Tripoli, where 550 students aged four to 18 are enrolled.
Ms McPhee took over as principal 15 years ago when her predecessor, Brendan Coffey, returned to Ireland. Mr Coffey prompted the school authorities to consider the Irish Leaving as an option and the school began teaching the syllabus in September 1995. The first examinations were held in June 1997. Tripoli is the only location outside the Irish state where the Leaving Cert is held on an annual basis, and the school is charged with complying with the same rules and regulations as Irish schools in terms of teaching training, tuition hours and health and safety. Naturally, some compromises have been reached.
"Our students do not take the Irish language as a subject - they are allowed to take Arabic instead," says Ms McPhee.
"Most do, because Arabic is required to enter Libyan universities. In history, students are permitted to elect an African history module instead of learning Irish history. Apart from those two exceptions, the rest of the curriculum is unchanged."
ISM students are offered a range of 12 subjects: English, maths, French, Arabic, art, business studies, physics, history, chemistry, geography, biology and economics. While most of the subjects are not Hibernocentric, some such as English are biased in favour of Ireland.
"I have never heard the students complain about having to study Séamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Patrick Kavanagh or WB Yeats," says Ms McPhee.
"There are certainly many Irish references scattered through syllabi such as geography and English.
"The students come away with a more developed picture of Ireland than most non-Irish students. It's never been a problem, though. They appreciate the opportunity to take this programme."
While Libyan secondary students take many subjects common to the Leaving Cert such as maths, science and history, their core curriculum also includes non-academic subjects such as military training, weapons instruction and study of Col Gadafy's Green Book, a series of essays outlining his vision for a "third way" alternative to capitalism and socialism.
The authorities at the ISM school have chosen a more broad-based curriculum because most of their students will go on to study and live outside Libya. A small number have already come to study at Irish universities.
The administration of the Leaving Cert in Tripoli is a relatively smooth affair, says Ms McPhee.
The 45 candidates will take their papers at exactly the same time as their Irish counterparts.
The same rates of examination fees are charged to ISM candidates and the State Examinations Commission arranges for an examination superintendent to travel to Tripoli each year to supervise the exams there.
This superintendent, who is a qualified oral examiner, also conducts the oral exams in a number of language subjects.
Completed exam scripts are returned to the State Examinations Commission in Athlone for marking.
The numbers sitting the exam in Tripoli since 1997 have more than doubled. Ms McPhee says parents and students are happy with the programme.
"We get no complaints and very few requests for papers to be rechecked," she says. Leaving Cert stress is less in evidence, too.