Vol. 547 No. 3
373 Mr. M. Higgins asked the Minister for Education and Science the reason a person (details supplied) in County Leitrim has not had a junior certificate project in metalwork returned; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3164/02]
Every year, my Department receives for examination more than 1.5 million scripts, practical pieces and other test products. It is not logistically feasible to facilitate the return of this quantity of examination material to candidates and in the interests of fairness and equity, I could not return a metalwork project to a particular candidate and retain material from other candidates who took metalwork, art, engineering and other examinations.
The optimum solution to the issues raised by the Deputy lies in re-aligning the assessment arrangements in subjects such as metalwork that generate artefacts. At present, the practical pieces in a number of subjects are examined in individual schools and consequently there are no logistical difficulties involved in returning the material. There are, however, short-term storage issues for the schools, which make it difficult to expand the number of subjects where the schools retain the material to include subjects like metalwork.
My officials are reviewing the arrangements in consultation with the relevant interests, including school management bodies, in order to progress these issues on a consensus basis.
