I’ve just finished reading Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy. All three books are great and I recommend them to anyone looking for a good read, but they left me with a few questions about the Irish educational system. Several characters mention getting honors in their Inter, which I assumed must be an abbreviation of something. A teenaged character is studying for the Leaving Certificate, while a middle aged woman is studying for it by taking night classes. What are these tests, and how do they fit into the general structure of education? I’ve run across the phrase “decided to leave school” so it seems as though people are free to decide how long they continue in school after a certain point.
For contrast, US kids enter high school around fourteen and graduate four years later, at around eighteen. It’s legal to drop out at about sixteen, but you don’t get any kind of certificate if you leave then. You get a high school diploma when you graduate and some states, like Texas, have standardized tests that you must pass before you graduate.
Inter is short for Intermediate Certificate, which is done around the age of 15. The Leaving Certificate is done around 18, and is the final exam of second-level education. It’s results are used in the competition for university places. I’n not really sure what the point of the Intermediate Certificate is these days, other than as a checkpoint and practice for the Leaving.
As general background, kids go from primary school to secondary school at around 12, and spend 5 or 6 years in secondary school. You can legally leave school at the age of 14, if I recall correctly. If you leave that early, obviously you don’t do the Leaving Cert, and it’s not uncommon for people who leave early to do the Leaving at night, in later life.
Does that cover it, or is there anything else you want to know ?
That about covers it. Thanks!