86% of Leaving Cert students fear contracting Covid-19

Almost nine-in-10 Leaving Cert students are anxious about contracting Covid-19 when sitting exams, while rural students are far more disadvantaged than their urban counterparts for reliable broadband, a major survey of young people has found.

Research from national youth organisation SpunOut found 86% of students feared catching the disease themselves, or passing it on to a family member, by sitting the State examinations.

Chief executive of Spunout, Ian Power, said: "The Department of Education needs to bring forward the announcement for how the exams can be run safely in order to put students’’ minds at ease. If the exams are to go ahead, it’’s helpful to have the start date of July 29 clarified but much about the exams is still unknown.”

He added: “We appreciate the Department is under a lot of pressure to put these arrangements in place but students need more information about how they will safely sit the exams, the length of the exams and any changes to the structure of the papers as soon as possible."

Just 40% are getting regular teaching from school online, 44% are getting some occasional classes, and 12% receive none, the SpunOut research found.

Only half of students have access to reliable wifi, with 41% saying their access was unreliable.

Mr Power said: “We are extremely concerned for the students who are being left behind right now. These are exceptional circumstances and students will already be disadvantaged by the way in which the exams are going ahead this year.

"We must do all we can to mitigate the impact on the sizeable minority of students who have no access to teaching or the significant numbers who are having difficulty engaging with teaching that is happening due to unreliable devices or wifi.”

The Government needs to act faster to ensure more funding for devices is provided to schools, he said.

“The recently announced €10m is a welcome start, but it’’s not enough to ensure every student has access to a reliable device from which to work."