Your education questions answered by Brian Mooney

What is the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme? The Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP) was introduced in the early 1990s in response to the challenge placed on Ireland's education system by a changing work and business environment.

It combines the academic strengths of the established Leaving Certificate with a strong vocational dimension and provides students with opportunities to realise their potential for self-directed learning, innovation and enterprise. The programme aims to prepare students for a world where the ability to cope with rapid change is of increasing importance and participants in the programme are encouraged to develop skills and competencies fundamental to academic and vocational success.

Why does one hear so little about it? More than 500 of the 750 second-level schools in the country are currently offering students the option of taking the LCVP and this number is increasing annually as additional schools become involved with the programme.

Who is it intended for? Any student who wishes to complete the Leaving Certificate and whose choice of subjects includes subjects with a strong vocational focus - see the full list, below.

LCVP students take two courses of study called link modules, which include "Preparation for the world of work" and "Enterprise education".

Do you have to do a foreign language as one of your subjects? The requirements for LCVP include a language module for students who are not taking a modern language at Leaving Certificate level.

There are various options available to students who are not taking a modern language to satisfy the language requirement of the LCVP, but as a minimum, students must do a vocational language module for one class period a week, or the equivalent, over the two years of the programme.

Please explain the subject groupings. The strong vocational focus of the LCVP is achieved by arranging subjects into vocational subject groupings, for example specialist groupings or service groupings.

Combinations of subjects from the two groupings form the two vocational subjects that must be included in a student's Leaving Certificate subject options.

Can it only be done through a school or could the LCVP be done independently? No. All elements of the programme must be delivered in school.

List of vocational subject groupings: Students must take two subjects from any one of these to qualify for LCVP:

Specialist groupings:

Construction studies, engineering or tech drawing (any two); physics and construction studies or engineering; agricultural science and construction studies or engineering; agricultural science and chemistry, physics or phys/chem; home economics and agricultural science or biology; home economics and art; accounting, business or economics (any two); physics and chemistry; biology and chemistry, physics or phys/chem; biology and agricultural science

Service groupings:

Engineering and business, accounting or economics; construction studies and business, accounting or economics; home economics and business, accounting or economics; agricultural science and business, accounting or economics, art and business, accounting or economics; music and business, accounting or economics

For further information about the LCVP, see the Second Level Support Service website, www.slss.ie.

Brian Mooney is president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors. E-mail questions to bmooney@irish-times.ie