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Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland
examining times
Mortgage arrears, the bailout and unemployment - who'd be a leaving cert economics student?
Some of the questions on the paper wouldn’t have been out of place in a third level exam, one expert said.
STUDENTS SITTING TODAY’S leaving certificate higher level examination were faced with a bevy of topics that would be familiar to anyone who has lived through Ireland’s ‘great recession’.
Among the topics thrown up by examiners today were the issue of structural unemployment, the implications of emerging from the Troika Bailout, mortgage arrears and the consequences of austerity measures.
Never mind the titans of economics who are currently duelling over whether austerity is a good or bad thing, leave it to leaving cert students to figure out what’s the best way to go.
Economics teacher at The Institute of Education, Ray O’Loughlin, said that the paper was especially demanding.
“In line with last year, this was a very challenging paper, with some very high-end questions, bordering on third level standard. Even well prepared students would have found this paper very challenging.”
He said that examiners had continued the recent trend of using quotations from the Irish Times, Forbes magainze and other publications in the preamble to questions.
Students were required to have knowledge of a wide range of topical issues outside of their textbooks. For 17 year old students, this was a very demanding paper, bordering on third level standard.
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