THE 65,881 Leaving Certificate students who begin their exams today include 23 who are sitting them in the first-ever foreign exam centre, in the International School in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
Two years ago, under its Irish principal, Mr Brendan Coffey, the English-speaking school, which brings together 480 pupils from 47 nationalities, decided to follow the broad-based Leaving Cert course in preference to a more narrowly-focused course like the British GCE.
A Department of Education superintendent has flown to Libya to supervise the exam.
This year is also the first time that the new Leaving Certificate Applied - with its more practical orientation will be examined.
It will include the first-ever Leaving Cert oral examination in English, a development some politicians and educationalists want to see extended to all Leaving Cert exams.
Leaving Cert Applied students have a head-start over traditional Leaving Cert students: many of them have already completed two thirds of their assessment through task work and other practical tests.
Just over 1,000 students are registered for the Leaving Cert Applied exam, with 2,755 registered to take the Leaving Certificate Vocational, which includes both academic subjects and work-related courses.
Students taking the Junior Certificate number 68,900, down from last year's peak figure of 71,208, reflecting the beginning of a fall in pupil numbers in post-primary schools caused by a declining birth rate in the 1980s. The numbers are expected to drop further in the next few years.
Around 18,000 of the students sitting their Leaving Cert may be able to look forward for the first time to receiving maintenance grants when they go on to do Post-Leaving Cert courses.
Fianna Fail sources said yesterday they expected that such students "would be in a position to apply for maintenance grants"
Department of Education sources pointed out that if a government brought in PLC grants in September, they would only be for the autumn term, and therefore in this financial year would only cost a fraction of the estimated £11 million in a full year.
In her traditional eve-of-exam message to students, the outgoing Minister for Education, Ms Breathnach, pointed to recent reforms including the appointment of independent Leaving Cert appeals commissioners who will have the power to seek all the documentation in relation to an appeal and to ensure that all procedures have been carried out correctly.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Most Rev Dr Desmond Connell, said students taking State exams were in his prayers. "Remember that God will lead you into the future if you place your trust in his love," he said.
The Leaving Cert exams will run until Friday, June 27th, with the Junior Cert exams ending two days earlier.
The results of the Leaving Cert will be in the schools on Tuesday, August 19th, and students who wish to appeal their results must do so by August 27th. The results of the Junior Cert will be in the schools on Tuesday September 16th.