State exams may now be held in late summer or autumn because of the coronavirus.
The Irish Times says the government believes it’s unlikely the restrictions will be lifted in time for their usual June start date.
Students have been urged to continue with their studies as senior officials in the Department of Education consider a range of contingency options due to the coronavirus crisis.
John Walshe, former advisor to Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, says holding the state exams in the autumn will be challenging:
“The first option is that they start as scheduled on June 3rd, the next option is moving them to July or August, obviously have to get buy in from unions and managers on that”.
He said “The big difficulty of moving them into September or October is that you would have to close the schools for three weeks while you’re running the exams, you need peace and quiet, what will you do with the 70,000 students who are due to transfer from primary to go to second level”.
