A Waterford student says that she's disappointed to hear that the Department of education were aware of the Leaving Cert grades problem since last Tuesday.
Yesterday the Minister for Education Norma Foley announced that the issue with the calculated grades system will impact 6,500 students.
The department has said it will work to ensure any student who gets a better course offer as a result of being wrongly graded down will be accommodated.
Minister Foley will face questions from TDs in the Dáil later over the calculated grades.
Katie Halpin-Hill from An Rinn is a member of the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union.
The former Meánscoil San Nioclás student says the news is disappointing:
"It puts a lot of pressure on students again, the Minister promised that this process would be fair and equitable and now it's becoming clearer and clearer it wasn't. The union (The Irish Second-Level Students’ Union) is disappointed that they and other stakeholders weren't informed of these mistakes.
"The department has known since Tuesday afternoon and the fact it is only coming to light now after the second round of CAO offers has come out is just unacceptable."
Katie has just started in UCC and says that's strange to be revisiting it again, especially after what students have gone through over the past few months.
"The chapter had been closed for us for the past few months, we've been starting college, we've been moving on with our lives. The people who have gotten their courses progressed onto college and we now know that unfairly that some people didn't.
"People have been moving on and that chapter of the Leaving Cert especially this year with all of the horrors that went with - it had been closed. It's weird to be talking about it again and it's weird to be revisiting it now."
The situation is an unusual one as current first-year students are no longer in secondary school and many are now first-year college students. It means the situation will be a joint effort between the Minister for Education Norma Foley and Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris.
Meanwhile, the deadline for the sit-down exam in November has been extended - applications were due to be in before tomorrow but Katie says there could be instances that these students may not have to sit the exams anymore:
"It's completely unprecedented we've never had a situation where there has been such overlapping between secondary school students and third-level students - it's very odd for everyone.
"People sitting the exams in November - they don't know if these mistakes are going to impact them and their results. Whether they will even need to re-sit the examinations- there is really a lack of clarity their at the moment but we will know in a couple of days I would say."
For any students that might be impacted by the grade errors, a helpline has been set-up and is now live for the next week.
The number is 01-8892199 and you can visit the Department of Education website at https://lc2020.education.gov.ie/
