Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 July 2023
416. Deputy Sorca Clarke asked the Minister for Education what actions are planned to ensure that the Irish students from the North are not negatively impacted by the post-marking adjustments for final examinations. [35612/23]
View answerThe State Examinations Commission (SEC) has responsibility for the development, operation and delivery of the State examinations, which may be sat by Irish students or students of other nationalities who fulfil the entry criteria. Arrangements for the delivery of final year examinations in Northern Ireland is necessarily a matter for the relevant authorities there.
2022 marked the return to externally delivered examinations for all candidates at both Leaving Certificate and Junior Cycle, with over 130,000 sitting the examinations that year. This was a welcome step towards normality, after the calculated and accredited grades processes which were implemented in 2020 and 2021.
In February of 2022 I announced a range of measures to address genuine and serious concerns that had been raised about the 2022 exams, in the context of ongoing public health challenges at that time. Those measures included further changes to the exam papers beyond adjustments that had been made at the start of the school year, designed to give students added choice and time in the exam hall, relieving pressure and ensuring greater fairness in the context of variation across schools as a result of the pandemic.
In regard to the Leaving Certificate specifically, the arrangements for the 2022 examinations included a commitment that the results would be, on aggregate, no lower than those of 2021. In order to achieve this, a “post-marking adjustment” was made to all of the results. This achieved the objective of ensuring that the class of 2022 were not disadvantaged when compared to the class of 2021. It also ensured grades were no higher than the previous year.
For 2023, adjustments have also been made to assessment arrangements for students due to sit State examinations in 2023, to take account of the disruption to their learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have also been clear that there should not be a “cliff edge” return to pre-pandemic grade levels. In order to ensure that there is no sharp decrease in grades, a post-marking adjustment will also be made in 2023, as was the case in 2022 for those students who sit the Leaving Certificate examination. Work is ongoing to ensure that the approach in implementing this will be fair and will be student-centred.
