@Duke
I know damn all about annuities and so forth so I can't opine on it. In my own time, a math A grade offered the prospect of a good job straight from school from Irish Life as an actuary trainee. We all thought it was about probability and statistics but I guess there's analysis involved too.
Yes, NI education - even today - is daft. Even on a building site in Terenure after my 1st year a fella from NI called Denis said no change would occur till children were schooled together. I know it happens in the odd integrated NI school but the norm remains segregation of catholics and protestants. Ironically both catholic and protestant schools must today also be catering for the tens of thousands of Indian, Pakistani, Afghani and Chinese/Hong Kong/oriental kids in their catchment area too since the latter do not have their own segregated schools. The tide has come in around NI segregation and they do not see it. It's a bit like Terence O'Neill's grand idea to drain Lough Neagh to form a new county: a great plan that worked every way bar its hydrology.
You can argue about Shakespeare as a required part of the English literature course: certainly doing two Shakespeare plays, a tragedy and a tragi-comedy as we did it in ROI for many decades, is going to give students a disgust of The Bard of Stratford. But if all physical sciences students exercise an option to drop languages and other subjects (or do them to pass level in ROI) in their senior cycle we will have few people who can communicate properly in English or any other language even on the subject of their own field. What's more, their social intercourse will revolve around casual banter or the brass tacks of our existence. While the latter will get them a spouse, it won't build any meaningful social bridges with people from all walks of life - an essential capability for people trying to get co-operation at work and in the community.
I know damn all about annuities and so forth so I can't opine on it. In my own time, a math A grade offered the prospect of a good job straight from school from Irish Life as an actuary trainee. We all thought it was about probability and statistics but I guess there's analysis involved too.
Yes, NI education - even today - is daft. Even on a building site in Terenure after my 1st year a fella from NI called Denis said no change would occur till children were schooled together. I know it happens in the odd integrated NI school but the norm remains segregation of catholics and protestants. Ironically both catholic and protestant schools must today also be catering for the tens of thousands of Indian, Pakistani, Afghani and Chinese/Hong Kong/oriental kids in their catchment area too since the latter do not have their own segregated schools. The tide has come in around NI segregation and they do not see it. It's a bit like Terence O'Neill's grand idea to drain Lough Neagh to form a new county: a great plan that worked every way bar its hydrology.
You can argue about Shakespeare as a required part of the English literature course: certainly doing two Shakespeare plays, a tragedy and a tragi-comedy as we did it in ROI for many decades, is going to give students a disgust of The Bard of Stratford. But if all physical sciences students exercise an option to drop languages and other subjects (or do them to pass level in ROI) in their senior cycle we will have few people who can communicate properly in English or any other language even on the subject of their own field. What's more, their social intercourse will revolve around casual banter or the brass tacks of our existence. While the latter will get them a spouse, it won't build any meaningful social bridges with people from all walks of life - an essential capability for people trying to get co-operation at work and in the community.