Early exam shock for Irish pupils

Students told some of their friends what was in the exam

Thousands of students in the Irish Republic must sit a Leaving Certificate Exam this Saturday after one school handed out an English exam a day early.

Pupils at St Oliver's Community College, County Louth, were accidentally given their second literature paper, due the next day.

A back-up English exam will be taken by nearly 52,000 students this Saturday.

The action was taken after students began discussing what was in the English paper online.

Students at the school saw some of the exam questions before the mistake was spotted and later texted information to friends and discussed the details on the internet.

New papers are now being distributed to 2,000 schools and examination centres across the Irish republic.

Now some are concerned the back-up paper will not contain the same poets as were on the original one.

'In trouble'

Brian Grieve, 18, was due to sit paper 2 and says pupils' and teachers' predictions and hard work may have been ruined.

He told the BBC News website that for the literature exam students have to answer one question out of four on set poets.

Students' preparation tended to focus more on any poet new to the set list, and any which did not appear in the previous year's literature paper, Brian said.

Now that some students have seen which poets appeared in the compromised exam, students are concerned the authorities will now pick an exam with questions on different poets so those students who saw the paper cannot have any advantage.

Brian said: "They could change the paper drastically, and then a lot of people would be in trouble.

They have worked hard, they are stressed, tired, nervous, emotional, grumpy, on edge - they really didn't need an error of this magnitude Cathy Grieve, parent

"Everyone's predictions came up in the paper wrongly given out and now we don't know what to think.

"This is one of the most important papers, and everyone's stressed."

His mother, Cathy, said: "There was certainly a sleepless night in our house last night.

"They will all learn from this but in truth it shouldn't have happened.

"You are given a task, a very important task of supervising our children as they take some of the most important exams in their lives.

"They have worked hard, they are stressed, tired, nervous, emotional, grumpy, on edge - they really didn't need an error of this magnitude."

Information for students

The Leaving Certificate is the final exam in the Irish state secondary system, and is usually taken by 18-19 year olds.

The State Examinations Commission, which administers the exams, heard of the error late on Wednesday and had to contact all examination centres to ensure the exam did not go ahead on Thursday.

It published a statement on its website explaining what would happen next.

It says the school accidentally distributed Leaving Certificate English Paper 2, Higher and Ordinary Level, instead of Paper 1.

"This error allowed time for some of those candidates to become aware of significant key elements of the contents of Leaving Certificate English Paper 2.

It said it had decided to defer the exam "in fairness to all candidates taking this subject and to protect the integrity of the examination process".

It said there were significant logistical difficulties in getting the papers to 2,000 examination centres nationwide, so the exam had to be delayed.

"The candidate is at the centre of our concerns and we are doing all that is possible to minimise stress and concerns for them and their families at this time," the statement said.