The number of students sitting the Leaving Cert exam next week is at its highest level for several years.
The surge in student numbers will put further upward pressure on CAO entry points for college, already predicted to rise this year.
New figures, released by the State Exams Commission (SEC) today, show 55,783 entries for the exam which begins next Wednesday.
This is the highest number taking the exam in the past years. Students numbers are projected to increase dramatically over the next decade as the demographic changes feed into school numbers.
The number taking the Leaving Cert this year is still some way behind the record figure of over 68,000 in 1995.
Maths attracts the greatest number of student entries (53,559) with English (52,519) in second place. Surprisingly, only 45,984 students will sit the Leaving Cert Irish exam.
The low figure will renew controversy about the high number of exemption awarded to students for Irish. There was controversy recently when it was revealed that many of those who secured an exemption from Irish were taking foreign languages.
Among foreign languages, French retains it dominant position attracting over 28,000 students. This is four times more than the number taking German.
Only 3,700 students will sit Spanish in the exam despite the close links between Ireland and Spain.
The Leaving Cert exam begins with English Paper 1 and Home Economics next Wednesday.
The exams continue until Friday June 25th. Results will be available on Wednesday August 18th next with the first round of CAO points published on the following Monday, August 23rd.
The SEC is also introducing a range of mew safeguards to ensure no repetition of last year's incident when a superintendent handed out the wrong English paper, forcing the rescheduling of the exam to a Saturday morning.
The new measures include:
- Timetable Changes; any subject with two written examination papers will be scheduled on morning and afternoon sessions (these are colour coded differently and this should help ensure that the correct paper is distributed).
- Redesigned examination paper packets and packet labels to prioritise the key information and generally to reduce the risk that packets could be opened in error.
- Each superintendent will be partnered with another superintendent for the purposes of validating each other's packets of examinations papers to ensure that they each have the correct papers for the examination session about to commence. A candidate in the examination centre will then be asked to witness the opening of the packet of examination papers and to confirm that the packet has not been tampered with.
- Face-up distribution of examination papers to candidates enabling candidates to see immediately whether they have received the correct examination paper for the session, so that the superintendent can be alerted in the event of an error.