On foot of a Government decision, I formally established the State Examinations Commission on 6 March 2003. The commission now has statutory responsibility for operational matters relating to the certificate examinations.
Within the limitations of our examination system, every possible effort is made by the commission to accommodate candidates who suffer illness, bereavement or other trauma immediately before or during the examinations. Each year, arrangements are made to cater for a wide range of emergencies. These include alterations to the standard examination timetable and special sittings in venues such as hospitals. The National Educational Psychological Service also assists schools and students in crisis during examinations.
The leaving certificate is mainly a terminal examination, which is examined by external examiners. This contrasts with examination systems in many other countries where assessment is conducted on a continuous basis or is conducted by the student's own teachers. Where the processes include a significant element of school-based assessment of students, the models provide a template within which there is the data, capacity and flexibility to deal with students who, for genuine reasons beyond their control, are unable to complete the written element of their examinations.
Prior to the establishment of the commission, the Department of Education and Science gave the issue of a repeat leaving certificate consideration over the years because it was raised regularly. The Department concluded that the constraints inherent in a terminal and externally examined examination system, resulted in significant difficulties in regard to the provision of repeat examinations. These constraints derive from: the length of the school year; the timescale required for holding examinations; obtaining sufficient additional suitably qualified persons to act as examiners; providing adequate time for the preparation of marking schemes for the repeat exam papers and arranging for comprehensive briefing and training of examiners; providing ample time for those examiners to conduct the marking to a high standard; the pressing requirement of having results available to feed into the college entry process which is conducted by the CAO and college admissions departments in August each year; and the need for an appeal system for the review of repeat results.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House.
When one considers that our State examinations currently operate against the tightest of timescales and to maximum capacity in delivering a high quality product at both leaving and junior certificate levels to strict end-users deadlines, it is considered that it would not be possible to hold repeat examinations and have results available to the deadlines required.
However, the future direction of senior cycle education in Ireland is currently under review, and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has published proposals which outline a vision for the type of school system which might exist by 2010. The proposals envisage restructuring of overall senior cycle programmes and subjects into subjects, units and short courses, and provider for an increased emphasis on modes of flexible practical-portfolio-project and continuous assessment, with assessment events spread out across courses of study and available more frequently. Depending on the models finally adopted, this may help reduce the importance of a student's performance in terminal examinations in the future and will enable the issue of repeat examinations to be reconsidered.