Department inspectors calculate that rumours were false

So far, it's been an eventful week two of the Leaving Cert exams, with both the higher-level history and geography papers stirring up controversy.

One enterprising Leaving Cert student was so incensed by these papers that he has created a website (http:// ireland.freeservers.com) and is inviting people with complaints about any paper to register them via the Internet. They will be printed out and forwarded to the Department, he promises. At Junior Cert level, meanwhile, potential disaster was averted when the Department of Education and Science despatched an inspector to Ard Scoil Ris, Limerick, to investigate a report that students sitting last week's Junior Cert higher-level maths exams had been allowed to use calculators. When contacted by Exam Times, a Department spokesperson said that the report was false. The inspector, he said, had been satisfied that there was no truth in the rumour.

Although the use of calculators is permitted in the Leaving Cert maths exams, they are forbidden in Junior Cert maths. Sometimes, it's the parents rather than the students who need exam reassurance. One parent queried the use of calculators in the Leaving Cert maths exams. The question paper states: Marks may be lost if necessary work is not clearly shown or if you do not indicate where a calculator has been used. By failing to admit their use could students gain an advantage, the parent wondered. Not at all, said the Department of Education and Science. Students who indicate that they have used calculators do not lose marks, a spokesperson said. Knowing that a calculator has been used simply saves examiners' time and means that they don't have to go searching for the rough work. Yesterday's papers in leisure studies and craft and design marked the end of Leaving Cert Applied exams for another year. At Eureka Secondary School, Kells, Co Meath, the girls were "happy enough" after their leisure studies exam, according to PE teacher, Ms Christine Foley.

"The paper was fair, the presentation was excellent and the choice of questions was good and broadly in line with what they had anticipated," she told Exam Times.

The popularity of the LCA programme is growing, Ms Foley asserted. This year, 16 Eureka girls sat LCA exams. Next year's class will be 24-strong. "It's a wonderful programme and leisure studies is superb," she observed. However, a major problem for many schools is the lack of teachers. "You don't find leisure studies in very many schools, because schools lack the personnel to deliver it." Very happy, is how Mr Eamon Chesser, described the students who sat Wednesday's LCA exam in agriculture/horticulture at Birr Community School, Co Offaly, where he is supervising. Mr Chesser, who teaches at St Patrick's Comprehensive School, Shannon, Co Limerick, said that he, too, was pleased with the paper. It was, for the most part, extremely fair.

Although we're only half way through the exams, the Bray Institute of Further Education, Bray, Co Wicklow, is already thinking of next year's crop of candidates. The year 2,000 will see the creation of 200 places on three new full-time honours degree programmes in psychology, social science and health and social care. Admission to these courses, which are validated by the Open University, will be by direct entry - no CAO applications necessary - and a basic Leaving Cert will suffice, according to programme administrator, Ms Susan McCallion.