President does his homework on ‘no homework’

In a recent appearance on RTÉ’s news2day children’s news programme, President Michael D Higgins commented that he believes homework should be scrapped outside of school hours, stating, “the time in the school is an educational experience and it should get finished at the school. People should be able to use their time for other creative things”.

His suggestion made headlines, with a large amount of people agreeing with the President, and calling out the undue stress homework can put on students.

Mind you, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar responded to President Higgins’ comments in a Newstalk interview this week, stating that while he agrees schoolchildren do get too much homework, he doesn’t think an outright ban is the right move.

So whether either an absolute ban or just cutting down the workload would be best, it seems there’s widespread agreement that students are under too much stress from homework.

Given how much we’ve been talking about children’s mental health lately (since the recent CAMHS report made headlines), I think it’s worth taking seriously how overwhelmed students are with homework, and timely for us to consider Higgins’ sentiment that it is vital children are able to use their own free time to pursue their own interests. Mental health should take precedent.

Even beyond that, doing away with homework doesn’t have to hinder students’ education; consider Finland, where they don’t give out homework and yet still boast the best developed education system in the world according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report.

Some people were unhappy about the President being seen to seek to ‘influence Government policy’ by discussing this topic, as people similarly did when he spoke about housing last year, but it’s hard not to think that he’s onto something. If these are the balanced takes we can expect, and if it’s going to spark a constructive national conversation, I’ll continue to welcome hearing President Higgins’ opinions.