Students may sit first exams as early as May

STUDENTS doing the Leaving and Junior Certificate in 2007 could be taking their first written exams as early as May.

The State Examinations Commission (SEC) is continuing talks with teacher unions, the Department of Education, school managers and parents on proposed measures to ease pressure on candidates.

Early proposals include holding the first papers in English and Irish a few weeks earlier than usual.

Both papers, traditionally penned in for the first two days of the early June examinations in both Junior and Leaving Certificate, demand reams of written material from students.

“There will be a round-table meeting with education partners in the next few weeks to discuss the options,” a commission spokesperson said yesterday.

As well as a possible May start for some papers, changes to the timing of Leaving Certificate oral exams are being discussed. This has arisen because of the disruption caused to school time by the conduction of language orals as well as difficulties recruiting the 1,000-plus teachers required to examine students.

A discussion paper presented by the SEC to a working group on this matter proposes holding the oral tests over the end of the third school term and into the first week of Easter holidays.

The SEC spokesperson could not say if any changes would be in place for the 2007 State exams but emphasised no amendments are planned for this year’s exam timetables. The oral tests will take place in the country’s 740 second-level schools over two weeks from March 27.

The 51,270 people so far registered to sit the Leaving Certificate in June is almost 4,000 fewer than this time last year, reflecting falling birth rates for the relevant age cohort.

A further 3,476 will do the Leaving Certificate Applied and 58,719 Junior Certificate students.

Launching the SEC 2005 annual report yesterday, commission chairman Jimmy Farrelly said one of the biggest challenges faced last year was conducting exams for candidates in Navan three weeks after the bus crash which claimed five students’ lives.

Following a review of the resultant actions, future candidates will be given information on the context and constraints under which exams are set each year.

Mr Farrelly acknowledged controversy around the inclusion of an essay topic on travelling on the school bus on the Junior Certificate English paper and reiterated that the upset it was caused was regretted and unintended. He outlined that the SEC had fully replaced the first Leaving Certificate English paper because it included visual and written material that might prove disturbing to some candidates.

Students in Navan were also given a Leaving Certificate Irish paper and Junior Certificate French paper with slight changes from those seen by other candidates, in order to remove the potential for further disruption to their exams.

SEC chief executive Pádraic McNamara said the actions taken to amend some papers were quite exceptional.

“We can never anticipate the unusual circumstances that are going to arise from year to year and could never rule out any course of action,” he said.