Transition year continues to sweep into second-level schools on a tide of enthusiasm. Last year, 24,500 students in 510 schools took part in Transition Year programmes. This year the numbers are up again, with about 26,000 students in 540 schools embarking on a curriculum-free year.

The Minister for Education and Science, Micheal Martin, has expressed his commitment to Transition Year and projections contained in the Commission on the Points System's background document suggest an overall participation rate of 77 per cent of students within the next 10 years. The introduction of Transition Year - a year free from exam pressure - is one of the biggest sea changes in Irish education in the past decade.

Transition Year is an interdisciplinary and student-centred programme which encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning. Its aims are "to give students space and time to mature free from the pressure of public examinations, to improve students' learning strategies and to give students an opportunity to experience the world of work and to reflect on that experience."

It presents a challenge for both students and teachers in that a year-long blank canvas is a daunting prospect. Each school must draw up its own programme - herein lies both the strength and weakness of Transition Year.

National co-ordinator for Transition Year is Gerry Jeffers. "The ideal is super," he says. "The reality is broadly very good . . . lots of schools have embraced Transition Year very enthusiastically and run extremely good programmes. But not all of the schools get it right.

"The point that parents need to be aware of is that there are over 500 different programmes and there is a great variation. The fear is that somebody hears a particularly bad story about one Transition Year and then believes that's the story across the board."

There is also the curious situation that a programme within a particular school can be patchy with good and bad elements, says Jeffers. "It's a complicated picture when we're looking at over 500 programmes but, on balance, we would have to stand back in admiration at how much has happened since the three-year senior cycle became available nationally in 1994/95."

The introduction of Transition Year was supported by a team of 14 teachers who were seconded from their schools. Now that the bulk of schools have introduced the three-year cycle, a new phase of support has begun with six teachers involved full-time in the Transition Year Support Service. The Republic's schools have been apportioned to five imaginatively-named regions - Tuskar, Lambay, Blackwater, Shannon and Humbert - and there are co-ordinators for each region.

Jeffers says that their priorities include schools which are new to Transition Year, schools with new co-ordinators and schools with particular difficulties.

Patsy Sweeney, who looks after Humbert (Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Donegal, Cavan, Roscommon, Longford and Westmeath), says that most parents' worries about their children at school are not centred on academic issues. They are worried about students making the proper subject choice in fifth year, about the huge drop-out rate in first year in third level, about substance abuse and stress.

Transition Year tackles these problems, she says. For instance, work experience can help with subject choice. The drop-out rates may be connected to incorrect course choice, lack of what might be called leaving-home skills and lack of time management skills. Students who complete Transition Year are more mature, she adds, so this can help with stress management.

There is undoubtedly some tension between Transition Year, which creates a space for students, and the traditional Junior Cert and Leaving Cert years which are driven by a need to perform well in exams.

Many of the findings of a survey carried out for the Points Commission by Transition Year students highlight "the tensions and real clash of values between what Transition Year promotes and what the points system seems to value." The report states that "for example, Transition Year promotes maturity, independent research and learning, exploration of ideas, initiative, teamwork, skills development, the ability to make judgements about their own work and the extension of the learning environment beyond the classroom. It is not always clear how the Leaving Certificate and the points system build on these educational experiences."

Jeffers says that the concentrated diet offered by the Leaving Cert may bring some disappointment to youngsters who have experienced success on a broader front in Transition Year. However, he sees this as a problem for those devising and implementing the Leaving Cert rather than a Transition Year problem.