More than 100 Leaving and Junior Cert students were unable to sit their exams yesterday afternoon after a fire broke out in their school and they were evacuated a few minutes into their geography paper.
Rather than get pupils from St Laurence's College, Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, to resit a fresh paper, the Department of Education has decided to award them grades based on school results.
The pupils and their parents expressed anger last night about the decision and criticised the Department's handling of the incident.
They claimed the Department had no contingency plan to deal with the emergency. They said it took the Department several hours to decide what to do.
A Department spokesman said, however, that it had liaised with the school authorities throughout and it was not "feasible" to restage the exam.
Mr Michael Lynch, whose daugher Anna is an exam pupil at the school, said he, along with other parents, was calling on the Department to reverse the decision. "Many of the students are doing a repeat year and are chasing points, so basing their grade on school results is highly unsatisfactory," he said.
The fire, believed to have started in the kitchen, broke out at about 2 p.m., just after the pupils began writing. Corridors in the school filled with smoke and the kitchen and dining areas were seriously damaged. No one was injured. The fire is understood to have started accidentally.
The students were evacuated to the car-park, with many having to leave bags and equipment inside. While the situation was being assessed, some students are believed to have looked at their notes, but others could not because their bags were still inside.
Attempts to find an alternative exam centre failed.
A Department of Education inspector addressed the pupils in the afternoon and proposed they sit the original exam. However, several protested, and pointed out that some students had consulted notes but others had not.
Ms Emma Hamilton, one of the students, said they were very angry with Department officials. "We did not want to take the exam because it would not be fair to other students or to those of us who did not look at their notes," she said.
The Minister for Education, Dr Woods, last night said his officials would be in contact with the school authorities shortly to discuss giving the students a fair grade for geography.