Vol. 439 No. 5
50 Mr. Deenihan asked the Minister for Education if she will bring forward the announcement of the results of the junior certificate exams to early August in order to facilitate students in making their subject choices for senior cycle.
While I appreciate the Deputy's concern that the results of the junior certificate examination should be issued as early as possible, an issue date in early August, as the Deputy has suggested, is not feasible at this time for practical reasons.
The early issue of the results of the leaving certificate examinations is a first priority of the examinations branch of my Department and the resources of the branch are dedicated to this task. For practical logistical reasons including availability of staff, the date of issue of the results of the junior certificate examination is linked to the date of issue of the leaving certificate results. The processing of the results of the junior certificate examination begins as soon as the processing of the leaving certificate results has been completed. This work takes four weeks so that, in recent years, the results of the junior certificate and of its forerunner, the intermediate certificate, have issued in mid-September, four weeks after the date of issue of the leaving certificate results.
