Rebecca Carter, an 18-year-old student from Wexford, has won a case she took against the State Examinations Commission after she was issued incorrect results in one of her Leaving Cert papers.
She brought the issue – where an examiner incorrectly added up the marks on one of her papers leaving her results in the exam 10 marks below what they should’ve been – to the attention of the State Examinations Commission several weeks ago. However they said that they would be unable to review her case until mid-October.
The miscalculation meant that she didn’t have the requisite points for the course in veterinary medicine in UCD that she’d applied for through the CAO. Given that UCD allocates all of its places for incoming students by the end of September the SEC’s ruling on her case would’ve come to late and resulted in her missing out on her place for the year.
As a result she took the State Examinations Commission to court over the issue and also brought an injunction against UCD awarding her place to another student before the case was decided.
Her lawyers successfully argued that had the error in marking her papers not occurred she would’ve been offered a place in veterinary medicine. As such, the judge ruled that the State Examinations Commission has to resolve her appeal by tomorrow evening and that, pending the results of this, UCD need to confirm her course offer by Friday evening.
