Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 15 October 2020
185. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Education the analysis carried out by her Department to the effect that the junior cycle class weighting system used in the leaving certificate 2020 calculated grades process constitutes a form of school profiling; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30739/20]
View answerOn 1 September, I announced details in relation to the Calculated Grades model following approval of proposals made to Government. The change proposed removed the use of school-by-school historical data in the standardisation model.
The use which has been made of Junior Cycle data in the model is set out in detail in the Report of the National Standardisation Group. Individual Junior Cycle results were not used to determine any individual’s Calculated Grades. Rather, the Calculated Grades process took account of the overall Junior Cycle performance of the Leaving Certificate class of 2020 in each school and used this data to help in predicting the likely range of Leaving Certificate performance of that group using related information about the relationship between performance at Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate based on national data over time for that subject at that level.
Technical details of the Calculated Grades model and standardisation process were published on the date of issue of the results, 7 September, and are available here: www.gov.ie/en/publication/2ed9b-leaving-certificate-2020-calculated-grades-technical-reports/.
