Thousands of students without career guidance
While more than 18,000 people have already accepted offers of college places, helplines to assist people with queries are still being inundated with calls.
The National Parents Council - Post Primary (NCP-PP) helpline has received more than 1,600 calls over the past week, mostly about Leaving Cert points and Central Applications Office (CAO) requirements.
Almost 100 of the 1,500 people who called up to Tuesday afternoon said they or their child did not have an opportunity to consult a guidance counsellor at school.
Applied to the 57,500 people who received Leaving Cert results, this 6.4% suggests more than 3,600 young people may have gone through school without access to guidance counselling.
However, Institute of Guidance Counsellors (IGC) spokeswoman Marion Quinn said many callers may have been mature students who are applying for college places.
“It is also possible that students did not avail of chances to take up guidance sessions in school. This can be difficult in many small schools, for example, where guidance counsellors have to teach subject classes for most of the week,” she said.
“It’s a fact of life that young people may not grasp everything they are told by their guidance counsellor at school, or others simply do not read the CAO handbook which should answer many of their questions.”
Almost one-in-four calls to the NPC-PP helpline - 1800 265 165 - have been about the CAO which issued the first round of college place offers on Monday. A similar rate of calls has been about having Leaving Certificate papers rechecked and gaining access to exam scripts.
The State Examinations Commission will send all higher-level scripts back to schools in the coming days, so that students who have already applied can view them at the end of next week. The deadline for those wishing to appeal a grade is Monday week, September 5.
The number of places accepted online up to yesterday afternoon was 18,000, or around 40% of the numbers offered a college course so far. The CAO has been advertising vacant places on dozens of courses which have not been filled because of a shortage of applicants, many in the engineering, science and technology sectors.
These courses are open to anybody with the minimum requirements, such as Irish, English or maths, but Labour Party Senator Joanna Tuffy suggested places should be offered to workers or school leavers who wish to study part-time.
