Students will get CAO offers earlier
FOLLOWING the stand taken by Castlebridge student Rebecca Carter last year, this year’s Leaving Cert students will have to wait just 48 hours after they get their exam results to find out if they have a college place.
Up to this point, students faced an agonising five-day wait to see if they secured a CAO offer. This year, students are due to receive their Leaving Cert results on Tuesday, August 13. This will be followed by the release of CAO offers at 2 p.m. on Thursday, August 15 - four days earlier than in previous years.
This fast-track timeline sets the ground for the release of Leaving Cert appeal results in the week beginning September 16, three weeks earlier than last year.
This would allow upgrad- ed students take up a college course in September, rather than having to defer their offer by a year.
The changes were brought about by the successful High Court Case taken by Rebecca Carter last year. She argued that her rights were being infringed by having to defer taking up her offer of veterinary medicine at UCD by a year following an upgrade to her results.
Minister for Education Joe McHugh said they had learned from Rebecca’s case.
‘We are helping to put the best interests and well-being of students first,’ he said.
‘We have learned from past experiences and I hope faster offers and appeals will help to ease one layer of anxiety around progressing to third level.’
To speed up the correcting of exams, examiners will mark scripts on a full-time basis rather than only at evenings and weekends.
While the appeals process in previous years took about eight weeks from the date results were issued until appeals results were notified, the new measures will reduce that process to five weeks.