A daunting few weeks for many

Over 60,000 students received their Leaving Certificate results last Wednesday and they are now faced with a daunting couple of weeks, while the CAO offers and acceptances are processed. It's an extremely stressful time, especially for students who have done less well than they had hoped. Many students now have to look at alternative options and make choices that up until now they have not even considered.

Every year, The Irish Times sets up a helpline to answer all the queries students and their parents may have. Free personal advice is given by a team of experienced and highly qualified guidance counsellors, headed by Sile Sheehy and Vivian Cassells. The Irish Times helpline has been in operation for more than 15 years, making it the oldest CAO/Leaving Cert helpline in the country. The line currently operates twice each year - in January when students are making their CAO applications, and in August when the results are issued and offers are made. This year, the helpline opened on Wednesday 16 August, when the results came out, and will operate every day from Monday to Friday between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. until the end of the offers' season, in early September.

Both Vivian and Sile have been involved with the line since its inception and have seen the introduction of many changes which reflect developments and changes in the education system. When the helpline was first set up, it was manned by 25 counsellors for only one day each week. The expansion of the schools guidance counselling system and the introduction of individual college helplines has resulted in the streamlining of The Irish Times helpline.

Over the years, student and parent- queries have also changed dramatically. Nowadays, there is a much wider range of college courses on offer to students, than in the past. When Sile and Vivien first embarked on The Irish Times helpline, the college-entry system was far less organised than it is today. Back then, each college had its own individual applications' system.

Traditionally, the first reaction of students, disappointed with their Leaving Cert results, has been to repeat the exams, Sile Sheehy notes. Today's students, however, have many more options open to them. There are, for example, many courses, which are not in the CAO system, which have lower entry requirements than the ITs and universities, about which students may be unaware. A number of the PLC courses, she points out, can lead to entry to cert and diploma courses in the ITS. From these, students who do well can go on to do an add-on degree programme.

According to Vivian and Sile, many students fail to think through these alternative options and find it useful to talk to someone about them. "Our helpline is particularly useful," says Sile, "when new courses are introduced after students have made their CAO applications. We can discuss the new programmes with students and help them identify a new course which suits them."

Every day during the helpline, the team of counsellors deals with a large number of extremely varied queries. Immediately after the results are issued, the students who ring in are those who have done less well than expected. They fear they will fail to achieve their top choices. "Very often, they just need someone to talk it over with and examine the alternative options open to them," Sile explains. "It can be a bit of a blow not to get what you expected and it takes a bit of time to get over it."

Other queries range from simple problems like converting grades into points to more specific, course related issues.

Surprisingly, the majority of callers to the helpline are concerned parents. According to Sile, students are aware of the CAO system from school but for parents, it's often their first experience of the process and they can find it extremely worrying. "They're worried that their child will make the wrong choice and they're anxious to prevent this," Sile says.

Increasingly, too, parents whose children are away on a sun holiday, are ringing in. Both Sile and Vivan agree that students should be at home for the results - and at the very least, they should be here when the CAO offers are being made. "They shouldn't leave their parents to deal with it," comments Vivien.

Anne Byrne, careers and guidance correspondent with The Irish Times, writes a daily column during the offers' season, giving advice for students dealing with a different issue each day. She helps to organise and set up the help line.

Anne finds that often both the helpline and her column tend to feed off each other and that the phone calls reflect what she has dealt with in her column that day. Anne finds the helpline useful since it helps to identify problems within the college admission system.

This year, for the first time, The Irish Times will broadcast web-based seminars in which students' queries will be dealt with on a live web cast. Guidance counsellors will be answering questions sent in by e-mail and the Q&A session will be broadcast in both audio and text format. Two web casts are planned : the first will be after the first round of CAO offers on Wednesday August 23rd at 10 a.m. The second will be after the second round of offers on Wednesday, September 6th also at 10 am.

The webcasts can be accessed from the main Irish Times website at www.ireland.com. Both webcasts will be archived so that students can assess them again later. Any queries can be sent via e-mail to education@irish-times.ie and the helpline can be contacted at 1850 747724 for the price of a local call.