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

Looking Back, Moving Forward 207
unless you’re doing seven or eight for the Leaving Cert, there’s something
wrong. (Park Street, staff, boys’ school, mixed intake)
In contrast to 92 per cent at Belmore Street, staff at Park Street felt that
‘about 70 per cent to 80 per cent’ of students would go on to a third-level
course ‘of some form’. PLCs, apprenticeships, the Guards, the Army or a
job were other pathways for the remaining students:
[Those] who wouldn’t have got the points would go onto do the Post
Leaving Cert courses. Some would go into apprenticeships … some
maybe the guards the army, and few would go into employment.
(Park Street, staff, boys’ school, mixed intake)
The school’s close proximity to a university was seen as encouraging
young people to ‘aspire to third level’:
We’re so close, I mean, that’s one of the advantages … of living in a
university town … that it does encourage the kids to aspire to third
level. (Park Street, staff, boys’ school, mixed intake)
However, the proximity of the university was viewed as putting added
pressure on students to go to college, even if they were not able or willing
to:
But the disadvantage is that it does put pressure on them, you know
that my friends are going, and these are going why am I not going,
and you know, there’s a lot of that as well. (Park Street, staff, boys’
school, mixed intake)
In Argyle Street, students had similar attitudes regarding their choices in
further and higher education. Student choices appeared to be broad, with
some planning on doing degree courses in subjects like engineering and
zoology, others intending on doing apprenticeships and hairdressing:
Interviewer: What do you think you will do when you leave school?
A beautician.
I hope to do bio chemistry in [name of university].
Music in [name of IOT].