The Irish Second-Level Students Union is calling for the traditional Leaving and Junior certs to be scrapped this year.
It has written to Education Minister Norma Foley, calling for an alternative format for 2021.
The Union has two strong local voices, with Doireann Broderick of Presentation College Carlow and Chloe Anderson of Kilkenny’s Grennan College both serving as Regional Officers this year.
Schools are closed until at least January 31st – but the Minister says she intends to run the exams as planned in June.
However Reuban Murray, the union’s president, says that’s not practical;
“In terms of the Leaving Cert we need to recognise that the exams as we thought they would happen before Christmas cannot go ahead as planned. We need the Department of Education, all the stakeholders, and ourselves the students included, to sit together and talk. What are our options for an alternative Leaving Cert, and the Junior Cert as well, because we cannot forget the early school leavers who have the Junior Cert as their only qualification.”
