STATE EXAMS: Students urged to stay in exams for longer

The minimum half hour that students must stay in State exams may be too short, says a principal who has asked parents of Junior Certificate candidates to urge them not to leave early.

Sheila Curley noticed more Junior Certificate students than usual had left the exam centre yesterday morning at St Aidan’s Community College in Dublin Hill on Cork’s northside, either after the 30 minutes that the rules oblige them to stay inside, or soon after. Most, she said, were ordinary level students whose maths exam was scheduled to run for two hours.

She sent a group text to parents of exam students at the school — where almost 100 are doing Junior Certificate and the same doing Leaving Certificate — asking them to advise their children to stay to the end.