Thousands of Irish school kids are being denied access to Post Leaving Certificate (PLC) places, reports the Irish Independent.

The number of available PLC places is currently capped at 31,688 by a sanction from the department of education and science.

However, the cap coupled with a rising demand from students is leading to uneven geographical distribution of places.

The Independent highlights research by the Teachers' Union of Ireland that found that there were, on average, two applicants for each PLC place.

The imbalance across the country was highlighted by Mary Wallace of the education committee whose figures showed that Co Meath had just 328 places for its population of 162,831, whereas Co Louth had 1,100 places for its lower population of 111,267.

The unbalanced figures were released at a meeting of the Oireachtas Education Committee, on Thursday.

Earlier this month the Irish Independent reported that increasing numbers of Irish students were applying to UK colleges.

Written by Donal Walsh

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