The nail-biting will reach a crescendo this morning. The long days of waiting and worrying are almost over. The next few hours will tell a lot.
Only the 5,000-plus repeat Leaving Cert students will be able to say if living through the anxiety is easier or harder the second time around as they gather, for the second time in their lives, along with the other 60,000 students, for their results. "A lot of students put a brave face on but they are exceedingly worried," says Vincent Kilbaine, principal of Colaiste Einde in Galway. "The results are an indication of what they have been doing for the last five years." And for repeat students, today's results are an indication of how the last year has gone. Jim McDonagh, co-ordinator of the Repeat Leaving Certificate at Dublin's O'Connell School, North Richmond Street, says the decision to repeat is not an easy one. "It's a very tough year for any kid." And, he stresses, the decision to repeat "must come from within themselves". It's not good when students who are not sure where they are going decide to repeat because their parents tell them to or because of other pressures.
"If they don't really want to be there themselves, it's no good," he says. But, he adds, "those who stay with it all increase their points. The increase is amazing. Everyone increased last year, some by 20 to 30 points, others by 200-plus. It was a worthwhile year."
"We have lads repeating who have gone through the honours course and maybe at the last minute decided to do pass," he explains. The repeat year gives these students a chance to do the honours exam. "They know what's involved. Most of the lads were delighted they came back to repeat." Also, McDonagh says, "we treat them differently". Students here, as in many other schools, are separate from the rest of the school population. "We treat them more as adults," says McDonagh.
Kilbane says results' day is a rough day for Leaving Cert students "because they are in trepidation and the biggest difficulty for them is: if they don't get what they want to do, the problem is that it's going to put another year on for them". For those repeating, he says, "by and large they are very focused and take a very mature decision". Students find that "it's a busy year. They have to compound the two years into one. They still have to cover the ground. They would have to read new novels and so on."
In the last couple of years, he says, the repeat students have tended to be those who have done exceedingly well in the Leaving Cert but who are trying to get into medicine, pharmacy or law. They would have scored 480 or 500 but want to improve on that. "You still have people who are repeating because they are too young or didn't do too well in the last Leaving Cert but the profile or type of person repeating the Leaving Cert has changed in the last three or four years. Formerly it would have been people who had not worked." This, he says, is no longer the case.
According to Michael Condren, head of the business department at Dun Laoghaire Community College, Co Dublin, the number of students who choose to repeat has fallen in recent years. Students are more aware of the range of options available to them. They are not overly concerned about getting a job straight away - they know they will have something at the end of a year, if they do one of the Post Leaving Cert courses," he explains. Young people used to repeat the Leaving Cert as a first option but "now they have PLCs as a first option". This is borne out in the Department of Education's figures. Over 8,000 students repeated the Leaving Cert in 1996. The number of students repeating has dropped by almost 3,000 since then. Last year the number of repeats was under the 5,000 mark.
