5,800 students make history with first State exam in religion

ALMOST 5,800 teenagers became the first students to sit a State exam in religion yesterday morning.

The Junior Certificate papers in Religious Education are part of a three-year pilot programme in the subject. Religion will be a Leaving Certificate exam subject in 2005, by which time around 400 schools are expected to have students taking the Junior Cert exam.

Yesterday’s higher level paper was well received by most of the 19 students who sat it at Lough Allen College in Drumkeerin, County Leitrim.