Within the limitations of our examination system, every possible effort is made to accommodate candidates who suffer illness, bereavement or other trauma either immediately before or during the examinations.
These arrangements, which are put in place at very short notice, can involve adjustments to examination starting and finishing times, provision of special centres in hospitals and support from the Department's psychological service.
The nature of our examination system imposes very real constraints in this area. Essentially the leaving certificate examination is a terminal examination which is examined by external examiners. This contrasts with other examination systems where assessment is conducted on a continuous basis or where assessment takes place at regular intervals and where some of the assessment is conducted by the student's own teachers. It is an inevitable consequence of a terminal point in time system of assessment that some students will take particular tests at a time that is far from suitable for them. By contrast where students are regularly assessed over the entire duration of a course the final grade awarded can be based on overall performance and therefore need not be contingent exclusively on how a student performs on one day alone.