EXAM administrators will welcome the news that the Department of Education is reviewing the way it decides the start date of the State Certificate examinations. It hopes to have a result within a matter of weeks.
According to the ASTI, a standardised start date will offer schools, students, parents, exam officers and correctors "a measure of certainty", giving administrators of the exam system a vital extra three or four days to complete their work. "It's in everybody's interest that this extra three or four days would be available," says John White, assistant general secretary of the ASTI.
Up to now, the setting of a starting date for the Leaving and Junior Certificate exams has been decided each year by the Department of Education through use of "an archaic formula", according to the ASTI.
The commencement date is always on the second Wednesday in June, but not later than the 12th. This year students will start their State Certificate exams on the Wednesday, June 11th.
White compares this formula to the method used to set Easter Sunday, which is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.
White points out that 4,000 members of the union are involved in the marking of papers. A standardisation of the starting date would facilitate the issuing of results, which have to be sent out in time to tie in with CAO deadlines.
"If the exams start late, as they do this year, this can present problems," he says.
"We would be happy to see the beginning standardised and this to result in an earlier starting date. It would mean that there was a measure of certainty. It could give a number of extra days for the administration of the exam system."
Last year the ASTI made representations to the Department about the late starting date, Wednesday June 12th, 1996, and an earlier date was set Wednesday, June 5th. The exams started on June 12th in 1985, and in 1992 they started on June 10th.
According to a spokesman for the Department, the review is currently under way and a result is expected within "a matter of weeks, it will not be a long-drawn process".
