A website designed to help students make informed choices about Leaving Cert options has been launched by Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin.
The service, www.qualifax.ie indicates which subjects students should take, dependent on what career they wish to pursue.
Funded by the Department of Education, the resource should be of particular interest to students before they make their subject selection for the Leaving Certificate.
Launching the new service at the Institute of Guidance Counsellors annual conference in Killarney yesterday, Ms Hanafin said it was a welcome resource for students, their parents and teachers, given the vast array of courses on offer to school leavers.
"There has never been more choice of third-level courses or places to study and young people and their parents need to be able to see the options that are open to them by following the right subject pathways through second level," she said. With the new service, she said, everyone could now identify the list of courses offered through the CAO application process.
This means that if a student has not studied the subject or does not pass or secure a higher grade in the subject at Leaving Cert, they may not be able to access a particular course.
"Too often in the past, students only discovered the implications of the subject choices they had made many years earlier, when it was too late to do anything about it," Ms Hanafin added.
"The development of this new service, in partnership with the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, provides a very valuable guidance resource for all second-level guidance counsellors, for use in their work with children in the junior cycle of the school system."