My Department operates a number of measures aimed at alleviating hardship arising from the payment of examination entry fees. A provision of £500,000 has been made available to schools so that entry fees for the 1997 examinations may be waived or reduced in the case of those experiencing financial hardship.
School authorities are advised that, for the purposes of the scheme, a necessitous pupil may be defined as a child from a home where genuine hardship exists due to unemployment; prolonged illness of parent; large family with inadequate means; single parent; more than one child doing the certificate examinations, and other circumstances which would denote a similar degree of domestic financial hardship.