Today is a landmark in the lives of the 130,000 students who this morning begin the Leaving and Junior Certificate examinations. The lead-up to the exams - especially for the 65,000 taking the Leaving Certificate - cannot have been anything but stressful, given the importance of the exam itself for the future college and career choices of students. For their parents, siblings and friends, the next two weeks are also going to be times of stress.
The pre-exam season this year has been reasonably uneventful. There have been no crises about organisation or planning. English, Irish and Maths continue to be the main subjects, followed in popularity by French, Geography and Biology. Only ten students, on the other hand, have opted for Greek with limited interest also in Latin and Italian. The declining interest in the hard sciences some second-chance education. One matter of serious concern, articulated yesterday by the Teachers Union of Ireland, is that only about five per cent of mature students sitting the Leaving, make it to third-level education, compared to about 33 per cent in Britain. The TUI wants all third-level institutions to reserve a minimum quota of places for these students each year.
This year, for the first time, Leaving Certificate students have the choice of viewing all their marked scripts afterwards. They will get a personalised form with their Leaving Certificate results on August 18th on which to apply to view the scripts. This takes place in early September. After this, the appeals procedure kicks in. This process is now streamlined and worked efficiently and satisfactorily when first introduced last year. But however important getting good points in the Leaving Certificate is, students should bear in mind that this terminal exam is no longer the be-all and end-all. Getting into college and getting a course of choice is no longer solely dependent on good results in the Leaving Certificate. There are now many alternative routes into third-level education.
At Junior Certificate level, an exciting innovation is the new Civic, Social and Political Education programme which is being examined for the first time. Designed to get young people more actively involved and interested in social matters in their own communities, nationally and internationally, over 19,000 students are taking this paper this year.