Older approach to sitting exams

Exams can be hard work, whatever the age

The Republic of Ireland's oldest school-leaving examination candidate is looking forward to his next educational challenge.

Michael Troy, 74, is currently sitting the leaving exams together with more than 60,000 other students, most of them nearly 60 years his junior.

But unlike the younger people involved, Mr Troy is not merely aiming to arm himself with qualifications for adult life - he left school in 1940.

The one-time Navy man has chosen to take this year's school-leaving certificate exams - the equivalent of Britain's A-levels - in a late bid to secure a pass to boost his prospects in a technology college's electronics course.

So this week he sat alongside the pupils in Cork's College of Commerce, where he has been studying for the past year.

'It's been quite difficult'

Mr Troy said: "You've got to keep your brain active, or you become a vegetable. I am taking maths one and two and biology.

"It's been quite difficult, but I learned maths because I want to do an advanced electronics course, and the biology course has helped develop my interest in flower photography.

"It's the most work I have done in a long, long time."

Mr Troy was born in Bristol, but his father was Irish and he has lived in Ireland since 1963.

He said: "I have applied for the electronics course in St John's College in Cork. I have already done four courses there.

"If I pass the leaving certificate exam, I will have an achievement. And if don't, I will have learned something. We will have to see."