From Leaving CertiFiCate to Leaving SChooL a Longitudinal Study ...

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From Leaving Certificate to Leaving School
Students from Belmore Street felt that it was not school but work that
prepared them for adult life after school:
I think work prepares you way more than school ever would like.
(Belmore Street, girls’ school, mixed intake)
Students in Hay Street commented that teachers at the school only focussed
on preparing students for the exams rather than employment or adult life:
Interviewer: Do you think school prepares you for the world of work?
No.
Only for Leaving Cert, they only prepare for the test, the exam. (Hay
Street, coed school, working-class intake)
Other students felt that it was not the role of school to prepare them for
adult life. Some suggested that they could get these skills when they
went to college, that this was their ‘gap period’ where they could prepare
for the world of work. Displaying an instrumentalist viewpoint, these
students felt that school was simply something that prepared for the
Leaving Certificate exam:
I think so like you are four years there [in college] and then that’s
your gap period, whereas this you have to concentrate on, like some
teachers will give you life lessons and you are like I don’t want life
lessons, I can’t write this down in the Leaving Cert. I want to learn
about the Leaving Cert. (Fig Lane, coed school, middle-class intake)
Others suggested that it was not the role of the school to prepare them for
adult life. Instead they had to go out and experience life for themselves:
Like in the working world you have to experience it yourself.
You have to just get out there.
Yeah, get out there yourself like. (Lang Street, coed school, workingclass
intake)
I don’t want help with it [preparing for adult life], it will be fine.
…Things will sort out themselves. (Wattle Street, boys’ school,
mixed intake)