COLLEGE CHOICE/Brian Mooney: Students offered places by the CAO last Monday have until Tuesday, August 31st, at 5.15 p.m. to accept the place.
Places not taken up in round one will be on offer again in round two on Friday, September 3rd, on line at 6 a.m. and by post that morning. By then, a new academic year will have started in schools and the whole process will start all over again.
What lessons can we draw from the Leaving Certificate result and CAO offer season that has just ended?
The most important lesson from my perspective is the effect that our social views on the relative merits of academic education versus practical skills education is having on those children, whose aptitudes lie in the practical field.
We have set high targets for student retention in secondary schools, which teach a mainly academic curriculum and which culminate in labelling 20 per cent of children as failures. This does not include the many thousands of students who drop out of school at various stages, from 12 years of age upwards.
In Germany, by contrast, there is a twin system of education, in which both streams have equal social status in the eyes of all. Parents are perfectly happy to have their practical child educated in such a school, and most importantly there is no social stigma associated with not being educated in the academic system.
Only when we as a society accept a diversity of skills as a valid base for education, will be able to develop curriculums appropriate to that section of our young population, who currently drift in a standard secondary school education only to fail maths, skip Irish, fail biology or history in the Leaving Certificate.
The current foundation-level programmes, whatever their intrinsic validity, have little value in the market place where students negotiate their progression following secondary education. We need a far more fundamental change in the structure of our second-level education system that will allow all our children to be affirmed daily.
Moving beyond the results of the Leaving Certificate itself to the CAO offers currently being processed, it is interesting now to ask the question whether this years pattern of applications tells us anything about the thinking of those leaving school and entering further and higher education.
From all the stories to emerge from this years CAO offers, one rises above all the others - that is the elevation of nursing past science and arts into the mid-range degree course from a points point of view.
The question arises as to why this is happening. Surely, horror stories of endless lines of sick patients in A&E departments, marooned on trolleys for days on end, should have made nursing a less attractive option to highly qualified Leaving Certificate students. The fact that it has not tells us something about ourselves as a nation and about the value system of our young people.
It would seem that those choosing nursing as a career see it as a genuinely rewarding career - both financially and from a personal perspective - knowing that his or her work really does make a difference.
The world of nursing studies has changed dramatically since 2002. Now the student nurse embarks on a four-year pre- registration degree course in mental handicap nursing, psychiatric nursing or general nursing which ultimately leads to registration as a nurse with An Bord Altranais and a degree at Bachelor of Science level (BSc).
For three of the four years, every student enjoys a combination of theoretical and clinical instruction. It's the student life but with real hands- on learning as well. For the other 12 months of the course, students will experience a 12-month clinical placement inclusive of four weeks leave and will earn a salary of more than €20,000.
Apart from the rise in nursing application points, the other major story is that students and their parents are finely tuned to the emerging labour market in Ireland.
The campaign by Government, industry and guidance counsellors to inform students of the opportunities offered by the high technology sector is evident in the turnaround in applications to science, technology and engineering courses.
It is vitally important now that all involved, consolidate their joints efforts, to ensure that our student population, continue to have accurate up-to-date information, concerning the opportunities available to them, in our dynamic economy.
The increase in interest for business qualifications reflects a growing confidence in the long- term health of the Irish economy.
The announcement by the Minister for Education and Science, that those with points scores of more than 450 will be eligible for consideration for a place in medical school, following the successful completion of an aptitude test, has my personal support.
It should take much of the hype out of current points race. Virtually every other career is accessible through the ladder route, starting at certificate level at very modest points scores.
Finally let me turn to those students who did not achieve the course they desired. There are many vacant places available through the CAO at www.cao.ie.
Thousands of places are still available on PLC courses, in apprenticeships and traineeships through FÁS. Direct application courses, in your chosen field of interest are possibly still available through the private colleges, Portobello, Griffith, Dublin Business School, and American College. They are fee- paying, but have full academic credibility and the fees charged are tax-deductible at the standard rate.
For those students who are not ready emotionally to leave home, because of their youth or because they simply cannot afford to live away from home, a new opportunity in higher education has been presented by Hibernia College.
Its online programmes allow students to stay in their respective communities and to find employment while studying. It offers places to students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
All its courses are accredited by HETAC, the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, and are recognised by the Department of Education and Science. Further information on its courses and programmes is available on www.hibernia college.net
The Irish Times will publish a special eight page supplement on the CAO second-round offers on September 3rd.
You can e-mail Brian Mooney on bmooney@irish-times.ie