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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 Nov 1972

Vol. 263 No. 6

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Certificate Examinations.

33.

asked the Minister for Education whether the examiners in history in the intermediate and leaving certificate examinations found evidence of bias in the scripts they marked.

The Deputy no doubt appreciates that historical interpretation leaves much scope for diversity of opinion. That being so and having regard to the fact that about 10,000 candidates take history at the leaving certificate examination and about 35,000 take it at the intermediate certificate examination it is entirely unrealistic to expect a large body of assistant examiners to make an assessment of the type involved in the Deputy's question.

34.

asked the Minister for Education the number of students who took the intermediate certificate examination in 1972.

The number of students who sat for the intermediate certificate examination in 1972 was 37,490.

35.

asked the Minister for Education the number of candidates who took the leaving certificate examination in 1972.

The number of candidates who took the leaving certificate examination in 1972 was 24,163. In addition there were 5,009 candidates who sat for one or more subjects.

36.

asked the Minister for Education the number of candidates who sat for the group certificate examination in the years 1966-1972, inclusive; and the number who were (a) successful and (b) unsuccessful.

As the reply is in the form of a tabular statement I propose, a Cheann Comhairle, with your permission, to have it circulated with the Official Report.

Following is the statement:

Group Certificate Examination

Year

Number of Candidates

Number who qualified for the award of a Certificate

Number who did not qualify for the award of a Certificate

1966

12,842

8,883

3,959

1967

14,546

10,333

4,213

1968

16,906

10,347

6,559

1969

14,481

9,002

5,479

1970

15,045

8,691

6,354

1971

16,845

9,475

7,370

1972

18,246

10,624

7,622

Is the Minister satisfied that the group certificate examination is fulfilling the purpose for which it was intended originally? Is it not the position that an element of social discrimination is creeping in in regard to the kind of student who takes this examination in hand and eye subjects that are not taught in the more socially fashionable schools?

I cannot say that I am satisfied absolutely in relation to the group certificate but generally speaking it is fulfilling the purpose for which it was intended.

Is the Minister aware of the problem to which I draw attention?

I cannot say that I would agree with the Deputy in that respect.

Since the school leaving age has been raised this year to 15 is it the intention of the Minister to increase the number of subjects at the intermediate certificate level acceptable to the Department and so allow our pupils attending technical schools to have this range of subjects available to them to enable them to take the intermediate certificate.

That is a completely different question.

The intermediate certificate is available in the vocational schools.

But the range of subjects is most unsatisfactory.

That is not so.

37.

asked the Minister for Education the number of applications received in his Department for re-checking the results of the leaving certificate examination for this year.

A total of 3,895 single subject applications for rechecking were received.

38.

asked the Minister for Education in what circumstances (a) a student was accredited with a D in honours leaving certificate geography which was not taken in the examination, (b) a student received honours in art for which he had not studied, (c) five student have been awarded honours in science for which they had not studied and (d) a boy student in a vocational school passed in Italian, a subject not taught in his school; if he considers that parents can have confidence in a system which permits such results; and what action he has taken or proposes to take in the matter.

The leaving and intermediate certificate examinations involve catering for over 66,000 candidates and the marking of over 650,000 answer books. All the work entailed is done by reference to the examination number assigned to candidates. If, for example, a candidate wrongly enters on an answer book the examination number of another candidate in the case of a subject not being taken by the other candidate it is only when the results are issued that the error can be detected. The same thing can occur where an assistant examiner enters results in the wrong column on the results sheet.

It is because of this that the leaving certificate results issued in August are provisional. Results incorrectly credited to any candidate come to light immediately that the provisional results are issued.

Having regard to the number of candidates and answer books involved, it is to the credit of the elaborate checking system adopted by the Department that so very few mistakes occur.

Surely the Minister cannot look lightly on a very serious mistake such as is implied in the question. Is he not aware of the grave lack of confidence of parents in the whole structure of the leaving certificate? Furthermore, can the Minister tell us if he has taken any steps in regard to disciplinary action against whoever was responsible for issuing so many incorrect results in the leaving certificate, and whether any single one of us in business who would be responsible for such a gross error could remain five minutes in business? What does he propose to do about the serious implications of these errors which he admits are a fact?

I do not accept at all what the Deputy says. I have pointed out to him that there are 650,000 answer books, that the number of errors are very slight and are often caused by the fact that a student puts down a wrong number on his answer paper. It also can happen where an assistant examiner enters results in a wrong column. To suggest that this is a very serious matter is ridiculous.

Could the Minister tell me, since he has personally investigated this matter, if it is a fact that, in the case of the five students who had been awarded honours in science, each of them gave the wrong number? I can assure the Minister that is not so.

I did not say those particular students did. I said very often the reason why there is an error is that they give a wrong number. In this case what happened was that the examiner, in error, entered five results in chemistry under two different sets of examination numbers on his marking sheet. That is the case which got very considerable publicity.

What about the cases that do not get publicity?

There are very few cases, and, in fact, nobody was at any loss in relation to this, because it was inevitable, as soon as the results were issued—and, as I said, these results are provisional results—that the error is detected. I was rather amused at seeing some headlines in the newspapers, that the parents were very disturbed that their children had been allotted marks to which they had not been entitled because they did not do the examination in the particular subjects. I could quite understand parents being disturbed at the opposite.

Is it not the case——

We cannot debate this whole question.

——that honours should have been awarded to certain students, and would it not be a grave injustice if they were not given the benefit of those honours?

This could not happen.

It did happen. I was present when telephone calls were made to the Minister's Department and the information came back that, in error, honours had not been notified to the school.

Of course, this can happen in the circumstances as already mentioned by me.

It should not happen.

I have already pointed out that there were 650,000 examination papers. Surely nothing can go wrong in this particular instance for the simple reason that if a student is not awarded marks for a particular subject which he has done in the examination, he or his school will not be very long about letting us know about this and this matter can be rectified immediately. Nobody is ever at any loss over it.

39.

asked the Minister for Education the proportion of those candidates who took the leaving certificate examination in 1972 who failed in Irish.

Four per cent of the candidates who took the leaving certificate examination in 1972 failed in Irish.

Could the Minister illuminate us as to what happens in the case of these students? Do they get a certificate? Could he tell us if his thinking has progressed any further on the line which he indicated in a television interview some months ago on this subject?

May I say something further on this? The students who make up this 4 per cent repeated the examination in September and as a result of that the final percentage failure was 2.9 per cent. In actual fact, the number who failed the leaving certificate examination because of Irish alone is .3 of 1 per cent.

The Minister has not answered the second part of my question. He did give some hint——

In reply to a further question here in the Dáil in relation to that I said that the Minister for Finance has set up a commission to examine the whole question of people's attitude and so on to the Irish language and that I did not propose to make any changes until such time as I had the findings of this commission. At the time I indicated that this would take about two years.

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