Junior Certificate - The Junior Cycle

The Junior Cycle

The Junior Cycle is the first three years of second-level education. In the final year of the course, teachers allocate a substantial amount of time for revision of key topics. Candidates also practice answering questions which appeared on previous examination papers. Courses are quite broad - for example the Business Studies course covers business organisation, marketing, economics, accounting and several other areas. The same is also true for the Science course, which covers basic physics, chemistry and biology. The Leaving Certificate exam by comparison is much more specific.

A "recognised junior pupil" must undertake all the mandatory subjects and at least two of the optional subjects, except insofar as exemptions or exclusions apply. In certain types of schools, subjects in the optional grouping (or a selection from combinations of them) may in fact be mandatory, for instance History and Geography are mandatory in certain types of schools. Most schools do not offer all the optional subjects, but must offer all the mandatory and certain optional subjects.