THE LOGISTICS are staggering. About 65,000 students will sit the Leaving Cert this year. Most of them will take six or seven subjects from a choice of 31. More than 800,000 components - written papers, oral, aural and practical work - will be examined leading to the award of 400,000 grades.

On the human side, more than 2,000 superintendents will be involved in supervising the Leaving Cert written exams next month. The students' work will be examined by a total of 2,800 examiners who are experienced teachers.

As to the forestry implications - the Junior Cert and Leaving Cert combined will consume 16 million pages of typescript in the form of questions. And the cost - the two exams will come to about £13.5 million with exam fees (exclusive of Department of Education staff costs and other overheads) paid by students recouping about £6.25 million.

For Leaving Cert students the exam is the finale of their school career and their results are the gateway to college or the world of work. How can all of the 65,000 students be guaranteed that their work is not lost, mislaid or wrongly marked? Last year, there were more than 10,000 appeals against Leaving Cert results and just under 1,000 of them were upgraded. So, one in ten of those who appealed got a better result. (It's not possible to be downgraded).

This means that 2.7 per cent of the total 391,999 grades were appealed and just 0.25 per cent were upgraded - a tiny percentage. Some human errors are bound to occur but if a good safety net is in place, no great difficulties should arise.

The efficacy of this safety net was questioned two years ago when 50 pieces of Leaving Cert artwork were lost. An independent report by Price Waterhouse revealed an astonishing catalogue of errors in the conduct of the Leaving Cert art exams. However, the Department has responded quickly to the many criticisms and the exams have never been more open and student- and parent-friendly than this year.

Earlier this month, the Minister for Education announced further appeals safeguards for the Leaving Cert. Independent exam commissioners are to be appointed as a final appeals mechanism. These commissioners will have the power to seek all documentation in relation to an appeal and to establish that procedures have been properly carried out. They will not remark the exams for a third time - all papers are fully re-marked by a second examiner on appeal.

The commissioners will be people of standing in the community - possibly retired judges or revenue commissioners. It is anticipated that between six and 12 commissioners will be appointed - on the basis of demand. Their role will be to certify to the student that the Department has done all that is required of it.

The two teachers unions, the ASTI and the TUI, and the National Parents Council-Post Primary have welcomed the appointment of commissioners. John White, assistant general secretary of the ASTI, says that this initiative "will independently vindicate the present system and further enhance the confidence of students, parents and teachers in our exams system."

The appointment of commissioners is in line with the recommendations of a second Price Waterhouse report which examined the exam appeals system and found it to be essentially sound. But there was a case for some form of second-tier appeals mechanism, according to the report.

The format of the appeals results is being changed to provide students with additional information. The Department will formally confirm to each student that a full re-marking has taken place and all the appeal procedures have been followed. Students will be also be informed that all parts of the examination, including practical work, have been marked. This is particularly important in view of the missing artwork saga of 1995.

A further recommendation - the use of bar-coding - has also been put in place this year. Bar-coding will be used to track exam work as it goes between schools and the Department's exams branch. About 130,000 exam-related packages will be on the move in June and a data base is now in place to track their movements.

NICK KILLIAN, public relations officer for the National Parents-Post Primary, says that the technology is welcome but NPC-PP has real concerns about staffing levels and training, despite Department assurances. He says that the Department must take full responsibility to sort out the industrial relations situation.

In a significant move towards transparency, the Department has followed Price Waterhouse recommendations and produced two exams information booklets aimed at students and parents. One booklet details the Leaving Cert exam process and the other deals with the mechanisms of the appeals process (see panel).

The exam process is outlined from the preparation of papers, the conduct of the exam, the marking process, to the issuing of results and the arrangements for appeals. For instance, we are told that when an examiner has completed the marking of a student's script he or she records these marks on a marking sheet which is then sent to the exams branch in Athlone, where a number of clerical checks are carried out.

THE student's total mark for each component of a subject is keyed into the computer system and then keyed a second time by a different operator. If a mark for any component is missing, then the record of attendance is checked to confirm the student was absent. Where necessary, clarification is sought from the school.

This type of detailed information should go some way towards reassuring parents that the system is basically a good one.

The booklet is long overdue, says Killian, and the NPC-PP congratulates the Department on its ongoing campaign to reach out to parents and students. "It will take some of the unnecessary fears away from the Leaving Cert," he says. "We would encourage parents to read the document carefully so that they know where they stand when the results come out."

The Leaving Cert results will be delivered to schools on Tuesday, August 19th. The Department electronically transmits these results to the Irish central applications body, the CAO, and the UK central admissions body, UCAS. Students who wish to appeal their results must do so by August 27th.