Testing time for 118,673 as exam season begins

The State Examinations Commission has received 118,673 entries for this year’s exams, including just under 55,000 students who are set to begin the Leaving Certificate this morning.

That is up by just over 1,000 on the numbers entered last year, although still lower than the 55,550 entered for the exam in 2011.

There has been an increase of almost 200 to 3,042 in the number of students sitting the Leaving Certificate Applied, while Junior Certificate entries are up 450 from last year to 60,698.

The final Junior Certificate exams are Italian and Ancient Greek on the afternoon of Thursday, June 19, followed a day later with final Leaving Certificate exams in Italian, Japanese and Technology.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn welcomed the high number of Leaving Certificate students lined up to take higher level maths when the first of two papers in the subject is taken on Friday afternoon.

Although the final number could be as much as 2,000 less, based on patterns in previous years, preliminary indications to the SEC were that more than 17,000 students would be opting for the honours papers. That is up from a pre-exams predicted entry figure of around 14,500 a year ago.

The final figure will not be known until results are issued to students, but looks almost certain to mark another record uptake of the higher level maths exams. The 26% of students sitting higher maths in June 2013 was up from just 16% only two years earlier.

The rise has been attributed mainly to the awarding of 25 bonus points by colleges through the Central Applications Office (CAO) to any student who passes higher level maths.

It has also yet to emerge whether there has been a further increase in the number of students who took the optional oral test for Junior Certificate Irish in the spring.

The SEC does not pay for external examiners to visit schools and conduct the tests like it does for Leaving Certificate language subjects. But an increase in marks for oral Irish at Leaving Certificate has seen sharp increases in the number of schools to have organised oral tests at Junior Certificate over the last four years, even though teacher unions have strict policies about members assessing their own students for State exams.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland and Teachers’ Union of Ireland have been invited to talks with Mr Quinn after the exams finish to try to resolve their dispute over the new Junior Cycle Student Award, the replacement for the Junior Certificate. The unions’ biggest concern is that teachers will have to assess their own students.

This year’s Leaving Certificate results are due to be issued on August 13.