All your questions education answered by Brian Mooney

Early in the school year after the Junior Cert, when deciding what Leaving Cert subjects to take, my son's school in Wexford offered him a choice between French and physics. He chose physics. The guidance counsellor mentioned that the universities were starting to alter their language requirements. However, should he sit the French for the Leaving Cert?

Selecting the appropriate subjects to study at school is central to the career directions open to a student following the Leaving Cert. A small percentage of schools insist on parents making that selection before their child starts into first year. This is completely wrong and educationally indefensible; as neither child nor parent can have any idea at his stage of the implications of the choices being offered.

The majority of secondary schools offer children a wide menu of subjects in first year and ask them to choose between a series of options at the beginning of second year. This process is repeated again prior to a student's entry into fifth year. Again, many parents and children are completely unaware of the long-term implications of the choices being offered to them.

The Minister for Education Mary Hanafin is keenly aware of this issue and went some way to addressing it when she increased the number of guidance counsellor posts in our schools by 100 last year, to begin to put in place a guidance and counselling service in the junior cycle.

Last autumn, the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, in partnership with The Irish Times, set about compiling and publishing a directory of Leaving Cert entry requirements for every course offered through the CAO application system. It will be published again this coming November and will be available to any student or parent on the Qualifax.website at www.qualifax.ie.

As a further support to parents and students in your exact situation, Qualifax is planning to offer a facility in the spring of 2007 which will enable you to enter any Leaving Cert subject in Qualifax on your PC and immediately get a list of courses that require that subject as a minimum entry requirement. This facility will enable parents and students to see the long-term implications of any subject choice.

Regarding your specific question concerning your son's predicament. The colleges of the National University of Ireland, which include UCD, UCC, NUI Maynooth, and NUI Galway, along with their recognised colleges, the Royal College of Surgeons, Milltown Institute, the National College of Art and Design, Shannon College of Hotel Management and St Angela's College, Sligo, have a requirement of a third language - in addition to Irish and English - for matriculation registration purposes.

As your son's guidance counsellor has intimated, there are a number of exceptions to the third language requirement. Students entering the Faculty of Engineering in NUI, Maynooth, may substitute any other recognised subject for the third language; this provision also applies for entry to the Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Agricultural Science degrees in UCD. Students entering courses in nursing may substitute any other recognised subject for the third language; students entering NCAD may present art in place of the third language.

Depending on the course in question, an Ordinary Level D3 is sufficient to meet the course entry requirement and it does not have to be one of the six subjects counted for points purposes. It would seem to me, therefore, that if your son is interested in a course requiring the third language he should continue to study French for his Leaving Cert.

Brian Mooney is the former president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors. E-mail questions to bmooney@irish- times.ie