Results accessed via Net from 56 countries

STUDENTS used the internet in a record 56 countries to check their Leaving Certificate results yesterday.

With growing numbers of school leavers taking off to work or holiday abroad before facing into college and careers, the State Examinations Commission (SEC) has experienced more business on its online results service each year.

In the busiest first three hours after the service became active at midday, nearly 7,000 people had accessed their results at www.examinations.ie.

While just under half of them were people logging on in Ireland, including students who had already collected results from their schools, people in more than 55 other countries had also done so. Apart from more than 30 European states in which the results service was accessed, others logged in from the United States and Canada, six African countries, eight Middle East countries, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, the Caribbean and South America.

Among those checking their grades were 58 students at the international school in the Libyan capital of Tripoli where the Leaving Certificate is the exam taken for graduation.

“We’ve had students taking exams there since 1997 and we send out superintendents each June to oversee the written papers,” an SEC spokesperson said.

Most of the candidates in Libya take six or seven Leaving Certificate subjects, just like those here in Ireland.

Far fewer students use the SEC’s telephone results service, given the relative ease of access to the internet.

Although students can check their results from anywhere in the world, Institute of Guidance Counsellors president Frank Mulvihill stressed that they have to be present if they have applied to have scripts checked at their school, an option open to those considering appealing a grade in one or more subjects.

Two students unlikely to be appealing any of their grades, however, are Rob and Pete Murphy from Model Farm Road in Cork.

The twins who studied at Presentation Brothers College in Cork city both received six A1s, giving them a maximum 600 points and securing them places at nearby University College Cork.

Rob plans to study mathematical sciences, while his brother has applied for a place in law.