Leaving Cert exam 'marathon'

Madam, – I was that Leaving Certificate marathon girl in 2009, starting my exams in the early morning, finishing at 10pm

Madam, – I was that Leaving Certificate marathon girl in 2009, starting my exams in the early morning, finishing at 10pm. My 2010 counterpart (May 25th) has four possible avenues: her local TD, the Ombudsman, the board of the State Examinations Commission and lastly, the bureaucrats themselves.

In my experience, the first was helpful but powerless, the second was supposedly powerful but inapplicable, the third interpreted their duty as to the bureaucrats first and the last were impossibly unresponsive to student need. Sorry to be pessimistic, I did eventually get to college. – Yours, etc,

NIAMH COLLINS,

Rochestown Road,

Cork.