IN A dull, cloudy day in Bray, Co Wicklow, overcast by both the prospect of rain and the slightly more worrying prospect of the impending Leaving Cert examinations, the conversation among the three female Leaving Cert candidates in the Bray Institute of Further Education has turned to boyfriend trouble.

There is in itself nothing unusual in this, since boyfriends and their odd ways presumably form a large part of the conversations of many Leaving Cert students, even in the tense days leading up to the start of the examinations.

What makes this conversation different is that a) Bernie O'Brien, Enda Sheehan and Anne Quinn are adults with children and b) they don't have boyfriend trouble, thanks to a combination of maturity and the joys of family life. The absence of awkward boyfriends, as Anne Quinn laughingly points out, is just one advantage they have over younger students.

"It throws a ditch on your vision," she says, and there is shared laughter at the easy reference to Kavanagh's poetry. Older students, it seems, like Robert Burns's bard, are "quick to learn and wise to know".

Returning to formal education seems to have been a life enhancing move for these three women after years away from the classroom. Bernie and Enda left school after their primary certificate, while Anne stayed until her Inter Cert.

"It was always felt that it was more important to educate the males," Anne says.

"We had to go out to work," Bernie adds. "I was the second eldest and I was expected to work. It was the younger ones who had the opportunity to continue their education. I just felt I'd missed out on something."

Ironically, both Bernie - who is taking four subjects in the Leaving, including higher level history and higher level English - and her son will be sitting certificate exams this year, since her son is a Junior Cert pupil. In common with Anne and Enda, she has received active support from her friends and family, particularly her children.

"The relationship has changed completely," she says. "We are now more friends than mother and children. They come to me with questions about their subjects and I come to them with questions about mine."

Like the younger candidates, they have been studying for two years for these exams, but their commitment to their subjects would put many other students to shame. They attend classes in the institute each day from 9 a.m. until I p.m. or 2 p.m. and study for four or five hours in the evening, in addition to looking after their own families.

"My husband comes into the room to check if I am still alive," says Enda, who is sitting exams in history, English and art. "I forget about everything except my books."

THERE is a genuine sense of regret that they have completed their two years together in the institute, with its relaxed atmosphere, its theatre outings ("We went to the Abbey to see The Playboy of the Western World," Enda says. "I had never been to the Abbey in my life."), its art classes and a staff who receive nothing but praise from the three students.

Even Shakespeare, for whom many younger students would not express any great love, appears to have struck a chord.

"Anne and I sat here last Friday and watched a tape of Hamlet, four hours of it, and we were entranced," Bernie says.

"I'd never have watched it before," Enda says. "If I'd heard Shakespeare coming on I'd have turned it off."

Yet the hardest part, they say, was not the study or the classes but walkiug through the door for the first time. "In the beginning it's a big decision," says Anne. "When you come in first you go back to your childhood in school, but it's completely different here. It's so relaxed." She is taking five subjects in the Leaving, including English and art at higher level. All three are taking history, a subject which each of them has enjoyed.

"In history, we were amazed at how much we actually knew," says Bernie. "You don't realise how much you know until you start and we would all have experience of our parents talking."

"We're becoming history ourselves," Enda laughs.

According to Pat O'Farrell, the co ordinator of the institute, taking the first step is the greatest difficulty for many adults returning to formal education.

"I think the biggest problem with adults is to get them to come in the door," he says. "It's a matter of confidence, and a lot of them have had bad experiences in school in the past. Once they come in they're content."

This year, 14 VTOS funded older students will sit the Leaving Cert at the school. Some of them may continue on to the institute's foundation course for those intending to enter third level education, run in conjunction with the National College of Industrial Relations. Last year, six mature students went on to third level.

Bernie O'Brien hopes to return to take the foundation course next year and to go on to university; however, regardless of eventual exam results, each of the women emphasises the immense personal satisfaction gained from returning to the classroom.

"Before, I would never have given my name as Bernie because I wouldn't have had the confidence. It would always have been Bernadette.

"I'm my own person now. That's what this place has done for me. It's the best thing anyone can do, better than any assertiveness course."