Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 11 Mar 1999

Vol. 502 No. 2

Adjournment Debate. - Leaving Certificate Examination.

Mr. Stanton

I thank your office, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, for allowing me to raise this matter and I also thank the Minister of State for attending this Adjournment debate. Last week I was invited to attend a talk given by adult students who were in the course of completing a UCC diploma in social and community studies in east Cork. Four of these students undertook a study to find out how many students are affected by crises such as bereavement, illness, accidents or even pregnancy, just before or during their leaving certificate examination. This would mean they would have to forego sitting the examination and therefore lose a year of study.

In today's world, education and its end results determine our eventual financial and social status. Getting points in the leaving certificate examination is one of the most important events in a student's life. Should a crisis occur, such as I have outlined, it would mean the student cannot sit the examination and would have to lose a full year. At third level, students have the option of repeating examinations at the end of the year, but unfortunately this does not apply to leaving certificate students. The Minister should examine the possibility of allowing such students a chance to repeat any exam papers they may miss out on, within four to six weeks of the examination. This would enable them to pursue the goals set out for and by them since they began school 13 or 14 years earlier.

The leaving certificate is a crossroads for most students. A couple of years down the line, whether at college or in employment, maturity becomes inevitable and independence becomes a reality. There are a number of reasons this is so, but they would not have to put their careers on hold if they could repeat the leaving certificate examination. That is an important point because their applications for CAO places depend upon leaving certificate results. Places in the Defence Forces, the Garda Síochána and nursing also depend upon the results of that examination.

We must remember that it is costly to repeat a year's study for the leaving certificate examination. Through no fault of their own, leaving certificate students who suffer a crisis must bear the full cost of repeating the year, including hidden costs such as bus fares, a new uniform, lunch money, new books and, possibly, grinds because the curriculum changes.

A crisis is hard enough but in addition the student is unable to reach the goal towards which he has worked for many years. This may cause damage to the student's state of mind. The friends leave school after the leaving certificate. The student has to repeat the leaving certificate the following year – leading up to the anniversary of the crisis, a bereavement or family breakdown for example, which reminds him of what he went through. We should try to protect young people from that if possible.

There are reasons to oppose my suggestion, such as the need to set extra examination papers. I understand other examination papers are prepared in case examination papers get lost, stolen or damaged. Teachers are on call and are available. I think students would travel anywhere to repeat the examination. Even if the results were not available for the first round CAO offers in August they may be ready for the second or third rounds and that would be preferable to repeating the school year.

Will the Minister request the Department to examine the possibility of implementing this suggestion? The students in Midleton carried out research, conducting a survey in eight schools and discovered that of the 1,857 students who sat the leaving certificate in the past four years, 193 repeated the exam and of those 15 were crisis students. If one extrapolates the figure for the whole of the country, approximately 2.5 million students sat the exam in the four year period, 24,000 sat the repeats, 1,700 of whom could possibly be crisis students. The student together with his family are in crisis. I know the Minister will not be in a position to say "yes" this evening, but will he request a feasibility study on giving these students the choice of a second chance. Some may not want it, but that is their choice. Students may opt out if they do not get a second chance and that would be a pity. The pros far outweigh the cons. Knowing the way the thinking in the Department of Education and Science has progressed, this suggestion should be looked at sympathetically and I look forward to getting a considered reply in the future.

I was asked to present the survey to the Minister for Education and Science, who unfortu nately is not present, but I will forward it to him. I commend the students who carried out the survey because they did a great deal of work in compiling this valuable research.

Mr. Jacob

I compliment Deputy Stanton for bring this important issue to the House. I will reply on behalf of the Minister for Education and Science, who is unavoidably absent.

The Minister believes it is important to consider the precise nature of our examination system and the constraints it imposes in terms of accommodating the life experiences of individual students.

Essentially the leaving certificate examination is a terminal examination that is examined by external examiners. This contrasts with other examination systems where assessment is conducted on a continuous basis or where assessment takes place at regular intervals and where some of the assessment is conducted by the student's teachers. It is an inevitable consequence of a terminal point in time system of assessment that some students will take tests at a time that they do not consider optimum for them. At leaving certificate this is the case for written examinations held in June but can apply in the case of practical, oral and aural tests as well. By contrast where students are regularly assessed over the duration of a course the final grade awarded can be based on overall performance and therefore need not be contingent exclusively on how a student performs on one day alone.

The structure of our examination system, with its heavy emphasis on terminal examinations and the modes of assessment employed for different subjects, results from a strong tradition of approaching assessment in the manner outlined. As such it very much reflects the views of the education partners as expressed from time to time. The precise format of assessment is also inextricably linked to syllabus requirements and in turn each subject syllabus, with its modes of assessment is developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment through a collaborative process involving the interested parties.

The constraints inherent in a terminal and externally examined examination system are not imposed by any Minister. They exist as fact and derive from the length of the school year, the time required for holding examinations, arranging for marking conferences, the numbers of suitably qualified persons available to act as exam iners, the necessity to provide ample time for those examiners to conduct the marking to a high standard and by 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.

The scale of the operation must also be considered. More than 130,000 students take the certificate examinations and more than 1.5 million tests comprising written, oral, aural and practical work must be organised and subsequently examined.

For those examinations conducted in June alone some 300 different question papers must be prepared and printed in adequate quantities.

Overall the administration of the certificate examinations is a mammoth exercise and the existing tight timetable from examination through marking to the release of results to candidates and the CAO does not provide scope for factoring in repeat examinations. To suggest that the operation could be replicated, albeit on a much smaller scale is unrealistic particularly as there would be little prospect of having results from a late July-August second sitting available in time to be reflected in college place offers.

Ensuring availability of an adequate number of examiners would present as a significant problem. At present we use 3,750 examiners for the written examinations alone during the June-July period. Repeat examinations would require a cohort of examiners to be available beyond late July-early August and this would involve a further encroachment on the traditional vacation period of teachers. As matters stand those who act as examiners essentially must take holidays in August before the schools re-open in September. The Department is anxious to do all it can for students who suffer bereavement or other crisis at examination time. The range of arrangements put in place as matters stand include such as, the provision of a special centre to allow a candidate take an examination on his or her own, adjustment of the examination start and finishing times to allow candidates attend funeral services, and support from the Department's psychological service. The Department will continue to be as responsive as it can be to the needs of students at examination time but it is important to recognise that there are limits to what it can do which are imposed by the current format of our examination system.

The Dáil adjourned at 5.20 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 23 March 1999.