By now I feel I am a veteran of the helpline phenomenon. As I reassure one more anxious mother before hanging up my telephone after the first week, I feel nothing has changed and yet everything has changed.
Nothing has changed in the way that it is parents (mostly mothers) who use the service to good effect. They read the daily advice column in The Irish Times and use the helpline to tease out all the options. Everything has changed when one looks back to the first helpline in the 1980s when the late Christina Murphy gathered some 30 guidance counsellors in the Irish Times newsroom to preside over the inaugural service to parents and students.
In those early days, the CAO offers were not sent directly to the homes of students as they will be on Tuesday morning next. Instead, they were published in the daily papers. So it was that hundreds of students gathered anxiously in D'Olier Street to await the first edition of The Irish Times. Once a copy was procured, worried eyes scanned every column under the light of a nearby street lamp, torchlight or a cigarette lighter. As individual students discovered they had received their first choice offer whoops of joy resounded, while the disappointed slipped quietly away in the dark.
There have been, of course, many changes since those early days, the most significant being the refining of the points system, the production of ever-improving careers information by third-level colleges and other bodies, which work so tirelessly to make their literature more user-friendly to students, and the number of IT packages, such as Qualifax, and websites now available. There is the proliferation of courses in further education that has ensured there is now a course for any student anxious to pursue further education.
But try telling that to some of our clients telephoning the helpline.
When the helpline was in its infancy Christina Murphy used to castigate the "Dubs" in her daily article over their refusal to consider any course outside the metropolis. It is still difficult to persuade some Dublin students that there is life beyond Kilcock.
Young people in counties such as Mayo seem to have no problem about travelling to the course of their choice, be it in Ireland or the UK.
My abiding memory of the helpline over the years is that of the humour of Irish mothers, even when they seem in the depths of despair.
When I started working on the helpline in The Irish Times I moved from one department to another where I could operate from a quiet corner. I will always remember the bemused look on the faces of the journalists in the property section on hearing sporadic bursts of laughter.
The cause of such unseemly mirth was people such as Granny Smith who telephoned with a very serious problem. The previous June, when she was visiting her son's house, the eldest boy was in the throes of final preparation for his Leaving Certificate. During the evening he announced that he must have his "Change of Mind" form with the CAO by 5.15 p.m. on the following Friday. Granny, realising that she would be collecting her pension in the post office the next day, offered to post it. Now in the middle of August she had discovered the envelope in her handbag.
Her only hope - the helpline.
A feeble voice came on with the query: "How important is this `Change of Mind' slip? I have just discovered one in my handbag."
Now we were in real serious stuff. Would granny be exiled from her son's house for the rest of her natural life?
"So what kind of Leaving Certificate did he get?"
An anxious wait followed.
"I heard my son say he got a string of Fs, but I'm not sure if they were grades or how my son reacted when he heard his results."
Quick thinking has always been a feature of the helpline. "Mum's the word, Granny - let it be another secret you will bring to the grave with you."
A gentle chuckle signified she understood and the blood pressure returned to normal.
The helpline takes place twice a year. During August/September it is mainly concerned with the offer of places in third-level education and the way the CAO system operates. In January it is usually dominated by students already in third-level who wish to change courses. The single most interesting development in recent years is the increasing number of young people who are not even in the State when the Leaving Certificate results/CAO offers process gets under way. It is taken for granted nowadays that the bulk of the Leaving Certificate class will holiday together on some Greek island during late August/early September.
There was a general welcome for the initiative of the Department of Education and Science when it was announced that students could view their scripts before deciding on a recheck. Judging by the number of calls during the past week there is a growing number of students who will not be around to view their scripts come the first weekend in September. When it is explained to them that they must view their scripts in person the expletives would make even Granny Smith's outburst on discovering the brown envelope in her handbag rate as a pious exclamation.
There was the case of the mother last year who sent a postcard to her son in Greece with the cryptic message: "Points to be calculated. Scripts to be viewed. Rechecks to be applied for. First Round offers arriving. Wish you were here. Love Mum."
I am a great believer in the helpline as a way of helping students and their parents to cope with the decisions they have to make from the moment they receive their Leaving Certificate results to the acceptance of a place in further education. So when the envelope from the CAO is delivered to you by post on Tuesday morning be assured that if does not contain the good news you have been expecting, there will be a listening ear at 1850 747 424 to help you.