President of Ireland calls on schools to stop giving pupils homework

Children should be able to use time at home ‘for other creative things’, says Michael D Higgins

Michael D Higgins says schools should not continue after final bell (PA Archive)

Schools should strive not to give pupils homework where possible, the president of Ireland has suggested.

In an utterance likely to be seized upon by children for years to come, in classrooms far beyond the shores of the Emerald Isle, Michael D Higgins argued that school should not extend beyond the final bell.

“Time in school … should get finished in school,” the president told pupils at a school in County Tipperary this week during a broadcast for RTE.