Vol. 512 No. 1
98 Proinsias De Rossa asked the Minister for Education and Science the plans, if any, he has for the earlier publication of the junior certificate results in view of the decisions which have to be made by teachers and students before the opening of the fifth academic year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25369/99]
The result dates for the certificate examinations are a function of the timing of the actual examinations and the time required for marking the scripts and processing the results.
While my Department makes every effort to issue results as early as possible, it must be recognised that there are real constraints on making any significant improvement in respect of the junior certificate if the issue date of the leaving certificate is not to be affected. Given that there is a finite pool of suitably qualified examiners my Department ensures that the number of examiners engaged in the leaving certificate marking process is adequate to enable the result deadlines to be met. This is possible because the later issue of junior certificate results provides, where necessary, additional time to examiners undertaking the marking of the junior certificate.
I am sure the Deputy will agree that priority must be given to the issue of the leaving certificate results so as to ensure that the CAO college entry process executes in a timely manner.
