The Department of Education launches a booklet to help explain how the Leaving Certificate examinations work.
Minister for Education Niamh Breathnach has launched a new information booklet explaining how the examinations are run. All Leaving Certificate students will receive a copy of the booklet.
Sixty thousand students are due to sit the Leaving Cert next month.
The main new piece of information relates to an appeals process for students unhappy with their results. Around ten thousand students appeal Leaving Cert results every year. Now, they will be able to check if their appeal was carried out properly through newly appointed Examination Commissioners.
Niamh Breathnach explains that the appeals commissioners will sit outside the education sphere and will be the final arbiter of the decision.
The Department of Education has also introduced a new tracking system for examination work and papers. There have been some embarrassing incidents in recent years where exam work has gone missing. Last year, engineering work from Leaving Cert students in Wexford ended up lying at the side of a road in Roscommon. Such work is now to be electronically tracked through the use of a bar coding system.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 12 May 1997. The reporter is David McCullagh.
