EVERY year up to half a dozen examination candidates find themselves in the unfortunate situation of having a parent die during the Junior or Leaving Certificate examinations.
It is obviously a terrible trauma. Despite this, however, students do persevere and the exam. The exams of the Department of is prepared to be as flexible to facilitate such students - but within the established policy that all exams are sat on the same day.
Thus, for example, there have been students who have been accompanied to a parent's funeral by an exam supervisor - discreetly - who then brings her back to the school to sit her exam at a later time.
This year, there were two very public cases of parental death during the exams - the murder of Garda McCabe in Adare, Co Limerick, and the Maher family deaths in a fire in Portarlington Co Laois - and a number of less publicised ones. Inevitably some students affected by such tragedies have been too traumatised to continue with their exams and will now have to wait until next year before re sitting. Some callers to Exam Times have argued that this is unfair, that the policy which decrees that a Leaving Cert exam paper can only be sat on the scheduled day and at no other time is too rigid. Some have argued for a new set of exam papers to be provided for such students in the autumn, so that they would not "lose an entire year", as one caller put it.
Others, indeed, have argued that the possibility should exist for everyone to repeat the Leaving Cert in the autumn.
These are persuasive arguments, but it is not as simple as it sounds. The feeling in the Department of Education is that it sounds reasonable to allow a student who undergone majors trauma during the exams to re sit in the autumn. But how do you define trauma? Everybody would agree that the death of a parent constitutes trauma, but what about siblings or close relations? And does a broken leg constitute trauma? Would you include a student who got mugged in the middle of an exam?
The worry is that if there were a second sitting of the exam in the autumn for special cases, it would be seen as a wedge which everyone who was unhappy with their performance in the original Leaving Cert would try to prise open further. There are visions of hordes of students turning up in the autumn clutching doctors' certs.
But then would it not be reasonable to have a repeat sitting for anyone who wanted it in the autumn?
The main difficulty with this is that it would throw college entry procedures into chaos. In fact, the Central Applications Office (CAO) says, it would be impossible to consider students from autumn re sits until the following year's intake. So, effectively, no time would be gained.
Exam Times discussed these issues with the Minister for Education last week. She was very sympathetic to the plight of students affected by major trauma or illness during the exams, but expressed most of the reservations outlined above.
According to Department spokes people, the integrity of the Leaving Cert is rooted in the idea of everyone sitting the same paper, on the same day and - except in very particular circumstances - at the same time. If someone wants to repeat, that's fine - they go through the same procedure the following year.
Within the confines of this policy the Department is prepared to be a flexible as possible. Thus, they will send supervisors into hospitals to allow students to sit their exams there; they will allow some flexibility of time (but only on the appointed day) subject to a supervisor accompanying the examinees, as in the case of students in Portarlington; they will even, as in the case of the Junior Cert students sitting their exams in Amsterdam on Friday, send a supervisor to accompany students abroad in very special circumstances.
However, they say, to go beyond that and get into the business of setting different papers to be sat by students at different times would be to run the risk of undermining the status and value of the Leaving Cert itself.
The Minister adds, however, that she is always open to constructive suggestions.
