What would the reasonable man on the Clapham Omnibus say?
Synopsis: National & International coverage of a school bus tragedy in Navan in which 5 school-children lost their lives and many more were seriously injured. Accident occurs 2 weeks before the State secondary school exams. In the first exam of the Junior Certificate the Department of Education asks students to write about "Travelling on a School Bus". An alternate paper was available (always prepared in case of theft of exam papers). The Exams Commission defends running with the school bus question with a response I would paraphrase as "life sometimes sucks, so suck it up and get on with it".
Comment:
As this is the FIRST exam in the Junior Cert, what impact would this have on the classmates of those who died or on those students who were injured in the bus crash over the course of the rest of their exams? What impact will this have on their performance?
The questions I pose are this...
- at what point does a lack of consideration and incomptence become negligent infliction of emotional distress?
- Should it have been reasonably foreseeable that the choice of question was likely to cause upset and distress to an identifiable group?
- would it have been reasonable for the Dept and the Exam Commission to have considered this identifiable group when deciding to act (or not to act) with regards to this particular question?
- Is it reasonably foreseeable that significant trauma revisited could impair exam performance in the identifiable group of students in question?
- What does this do for the 'value for money' analysis of the counselling services that the Dept of Education has been providing for those students involved in the horrific bus crash?
In the case where a single student would have suffered an injury or trauma in a private context, they would not be, ordinarily, identifiable to the Dept or the Exams Commission. As such, in that context, perhaps the "life sometimes sucks" defence from the Commission is valid.
However this situation is different. Dept. of Education penny-pinching on safety issues in school buses may have contributed to the scale of the injury that these students have experienced. With such a poor choice of question the Exams Commission has added insult to that, quite apart from the potential psychological and academic injury that this outright sloppyness (I hesitate to use the word negligence as it has a very distinct meaning) might have caused.
Yes, life does suck. And sometimes you just have to knuckle down and get on with things. But did the Dept have to rub salt into the still open wounds?
7 Comments:
You know that is a ridiculous attitude to have. Yes it was a tragedy, but having the same topic in an exam is no big deal. I'm sure most students didn't even blink as they read the essay topics, they didn't have to write on this topic after all.
Hard cases make bad laws. How many other students are there out there that have suffered trauma in the days leading up to the exams, trauma that might be brought up by a variety of things, should they get to write to the exams dept and ask for that specific topic not to be brought up?
Obviously no one wants to make these teenages suffer any more than they have, but they can't very well just close their eyes every time a bus goes by can they?
First, a small side point. "Hard cases make bad law" is one of those pseudo-legal aphorisms ("posession is nine tenths of the law" being another) which, insofar as it has any meaning at all, is the very opposite of the truth. Hard cases make good, or at least better law. They allow for the existing rule to be modified to take account of circumstances unforseen at the time of its formulation. That's how the law works. The old "Hard cases" saw is usually heard by people defending the misapplication of a rigid rule in the face of all common sense, "otherwise, where will it all end?" No exception here, alas.
But back to fence's comment: It's mostly effectively refuted by Darragh's original posting. The tragedy affected significant numbers, and the Department were not unaware of it, so the argument about people writing into the department to make requsts simply doesn't hit home.
The reasons most students didn't even blink upon reading the paper is (duh) that most students didn't lose schoolmates to a bus crash. Still, I imagine that more than one essay concerned the insensitivity of the topic, and the poor conditions of school buses.
And as for closing their eyes when buses go past, well buses are inescapable in everyday life. The exam question debacle could quite easily have been avoided. The department did not avoid it. Not, I'm willing to believe, due to malice. But a simple mea culpa is surely in order from a body that was not without some tint of blame for the tragedy itself.
I'd have to sit between Fence and Daragh here.
I certainly don't think that you could win a case for personal injury solely on Daragh's outlined grounds. But on the other hand, I think it is quite likely that the Exams Commission was sloppy here. The key point is that they had alternative papers printed. They had a choice to either take the, admittedly considerable, trouble to swap the school bus paper for the other or to just carry on as planned.
Like most bureaucracies, they put their own convenience before the needs of the people they are intended to serve.
When I said most students I meant most of the student who would have attended the schools that were hit by the crash. Should have been a bit clearer. The original post said that:
"In the case where a single student would have suffered an injury or trauma in a private context, they would not be, ordinarily, identifiable to the Dept or the Exams Commission. As such, in that context, perhaps the "life sometimes sucks" defence from the Commission is valid."
That was what my comment about writing to the dept. was about.
This exam was printed last Feb. Can you imagine the hassle that would have been created around the country if they had had to pull that paper and replace it with the back-up. It would have created more problems.
I'm not saying that this wasn't insensitive (maybe I was a bit quick to comment yesterday) but I do think that this post goes too far.
Soory, just seen the point raised by the editor that there were alternative papers printed, from what I've read they have back-up papers, but they aren't printed. Not until the need arises. If they do actually have the thousands printed then I think there would be a greater argument for replacing the papers.
Hello there Fence,
Thanks for the comments and thoughts.
I do recall a paper being withdrawn the week of an exam when it leaked out in a certain school a few years ago. It was replaced instant by the spare one, suggesting that they do have them on standby.
It belies the editor's profession that he would immediately assess the probablity of a win on the facts.
Personally I'd have to agree with him, but the gist of my intention with the post was not to drum up business for the legal-beagles in the Four Courts, but rather to pose questions of basic common sense and decency (albeit ones which have been posed in law in the past).
Fergal's suggestion that a little mea culpa is called for is one I agree with. Irrespective of the root cause of the issue or the logistical issues with replacing the paper, the "life sucks, get on with it" response didn't do much to bolser the 'customer-focussed' image of our modern Civil Service.
Fence seems to think that having the choice not to write on the subject would deflate the impact of seeing the question. For some it might, for others it might not. And in any event it does not take away from the insenstivity of leaving the question in place.
As for the issue of replacing the exam papers, it has happened a number of times in recent years when there have been rumours or verified instances of papers being leaked ahead of the exam.
Alternate papers have been available in time for the exam. I recall it happened the year I did the leaving cert (or possibly the year after... it was a while ago) as a result of a paper allegedly being misappropriated from a school in the midlands. And that happened without 2 weeks notice (from what I remember that paper was replaced overnight). This paper was available in Feb, so somebody in the Dept. knew on the day of the crash that this was a potential issue. A little bit of "join the dots" thinking could have avoided this unfortunate incident.
And to paraphrase the NRA - Hard cases don't make bad laws, sloppy legislation and eccentric judges make bad laws. But as Fergal points out, the system has mechanisms to modify existing rules to make them better.
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