Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 April 2014
148. Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor asked the Minister for Education and Skills the steps that have been taken to ensure no future mistakes will occur on leaving certificate papers which has previously happened; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18894/14]
View answerIn the 2013 State certificate examinations, a number of Leaving Certificate and Junior Certificate examination papers contained undetected errors which had not come to light before the examination and which had the potential to impact on candidate answering. The SEC accepted that level of error in the 2013 examination papers was unacceptably high and apologised to the candidates affected. Specific measures were implemented in the marking process by the SEC so that candidates have not been disadvantaged as a result of these errors. These measures were successful.Following on from the 2013 marking process the SEC carried out an in-depth review of the errors that occurred in the 2013 Certificate Examinations. The SEC's report on this review was presented to me last August. The report made a number of recommendations to reduce the risk of errors occurring in the future. While recognising that it is not possible to ensure that examinations in the future will be completely error free, nevertheless the following steps have been taken by the SEC so as to minimise the risk of error in the future:
- Senior management has adopted a more strategic approach to anticipating and assessing the impact of retirements and other staff changes including assessing the risks associated with the loss of subject-specific examination expertise. Strategies such as the development of subject specific protocols and the documentation and sharing of good practice among experienced and new Examination and Assessment managers (EAMs) have been put in place;
- The current personnel structures for the preparation of examination papers have been reviewed. International practice in relation to examination paper preparation and quality assurance measures has also been researched and reviewed. Further to this review an additional QA measure has been put in place for the 2014 Leaving Certificate examinations;
- The SEC's formal protocols for paper preparation have been reviewed. These protocols are considered generally robust and fit for purpose. However they are generic in nature and, in the case of some subjects, they have been supplemented by EAMs and Setters with additional practices to deal with technical and specialised requirements of those subjects. The recording and dissemination of these informal subject specific practices is ongoing. The protocols emerging will also be used in training new permanent and contract staff thus protecting the organisation against loss of corporate memory and examination expertise into the future;
- All post print errors over the last three years have been collated and analysed. These include errors dealt with through the annual List of Corrections, errors which led to reprints before the examinations and errors which were detected in the course of the examinations;
- Information arising from this review has been used to identify where procedures and protocols might be strengthened and/or the training needs of staff e.g. in areas such as proof reading and version control;
- In the case of Mathematics, additional contract staff has been deployed to assist in the preparation of examination papers over the transitional phasing in of Project Maths at both Leaving and Junior Certificate.
In addition to the forgoing the SEC will develop a communication strategy specifically for dealing with error. This will include designating a specific area on its website to providing information on its approach to dealing with errors in examinations.
