Leaving cert papers to be entirely written in emojis

© waterfordwhispersnews.com

Following reports of record levels of borderline-illiteracy in today's teenagers, the Department of Education has revealed plans to publish this year's Leaving Certificate exam papers in a combination of emojis, emoticons, and 'text-speak'.

The move comes following falling results among Leaving Cert students, which many experts have attributed to the rise in smartphone communications, in which proper spelling and grammar have been cast aside in favour of smiley faces and acronyms.

Exacerbated by social media platforms such as Snapchat and Twitter, today's student now has trouble reading plain English, let alone writing it. In a bid to combat this, a spokesperson for the Department of Education today announced plans to publish exam papers written using the same nonsense that kids are used to reading and writing every day.

"The ability of a teenager to form a coherent sentence had nosedived in recent years," said Owen Caughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Education.

"This has lead to a drop in performance across the board when it comes to Leaving Cert results. We were going to issue spelling waivers similar to those we offer to dyslexic pupils, but in the end, we thought it would be easier to just write the exam papers using a combination of LOL-speak and wee pictures of cats high-fiving each other".

Following the implementation of the emoji system, the DOE will next look at an overhaul of test marking, with the current points system expected to be replaced with Likes and FAVs.