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A total of 2,820 students have applied to take the 2020 postponed Leaving Cert exams to be held next month.
This represents just under 5 percent of the 61,000 candidates who were scheduled to sit for the exams in June this year.
Postponed exams will take place during the evenings and weekends between November 16 and December 11.
All students required to sit for the summer exams were given the option of receiving calculated grades and taking Leaving Cert written exams at a later date when it was deemed safe to do so.
Students who have received calculated grades and choose to take the written exams will be credited with the higher grade of the two.
Students are cautioned that written tests will be based on the normal format, content, and structure of the question paper, as in previous years.
Separately, it is understood that 424 students whose Leaving Cert results were updated following errors in the calculated grade process will receive new offers from CAO on Thursday.
A total of 48 of these students had not previously received an offer from the CAO, while the remainder have accepted or started other college programs.
Higher Education Minister Simon Harris and institutions of higher education have been in talks in recent days to ensure that all of these students can take these courses in the current academic year.
They include positions in nursing, teaching, speech and language therapy and a single position in dentistry and other radiotherapy, according to sources.
These 424 students 7 represent approximately 7 percent of the 6,100 Leaving Cert students whose results were updated due to coding errors discovered in the last fortnight.
The new offers will be issued online at 10 a.m. Thursday and additional college slots will be distributed among institutions of higher education.
Leaving Cert exams, meanwhile, will take the form of written assignments only. Scores will not be available for oral language or music interpretation tests on the basis that it would “not be feasible or practical” to test these components, according to the Department of Education.
However, in the case of five subjects, the examiners will grade the course work that was completed before school closed. These grades will be included in the grade for these subjects.
These topics include home economics; design and communication graphics; physical education; Engineering; and the LCVP (Leaving Cert Vocational) portfolio.
Additionally, Junior Cycle exams for adult learners and students who leave school early will also begin next month. Exams will also be scheduled for evenings and weekends.
Regarding the decision not to take exams in oral or practical components, or to try to complete unfinished courses, Education Minister Norma Foley has said that this was based on the fact that these were schoolchildren.
Completing them would require significant levels of school-wide support, including a requirement to remove in-service teachers from their schools.
Ms. Foley said that a previous decision last March to award the highest marks regarding the musical performance and oral language tests was canceled when the calculated grading system was introduced in May.
“Candidates do not automatically receive the highest score for any component of the exam in the calculated grade system,” according to a statement from the Department of Education.
“As a result, it would not be appropriate or fair to award the highest marks to some exam components now in the interest of fairness between candidates between those taking a post-exam and those receiving a calculated grade.”
While Junior Cycle exams were canceled and replaced by in-school assessments, written exams will be available to adult learners and students leaving school early in November 2020.
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