The news has broken over night with respect to the disastrous online system provided by the CAO for leaving certificate students filling out their college choices. Seemingly the website has been frequently inaccessible causing much distress to students who are already on nerves end with their approaching exams and confusion as to whether or not their choices will be good ones. In addition the students have now been told to post their applications and pay the Eur 10 fee for doing so – insulting to say the least. What makes this case completely inexcusable is that unlike many other websites where the number of users in indeterminable, the CAO already knows exactly how many students are registered to sit the leaving certificate. Not having the hardware/software combination to scale to this number is completely ridiculous. Especially when you consider that this is Ireland and we really can’t have that many people sitting their leaving certificate this year! Shame on you CAO, shame on you…