Non-curricular EU languages witness surge

THE numbers due to sit Leaving Certificate exams in non-curricular EU languages is up by more than a quarter this year to 1,323.

Almost half of them are preparing for next Monday afternoon, when 582 students are entered to take Polish papers, up from 451 who took the subject last year.

The next most common EU languages which are not taught as part of the mainstream curriculum are Lithuanian (257 students, 50 more than last year) and Latvian (121 candidates compared with 96 in 2010). The numbers taking Slovakian exams has risen from less than 10 a year ago to 38 sitting the papers on Friday, June 24.