Vol. 545 No. 4
413 Mr. G. Reynolds asked the Minister for Education and Science the reason projects handed in by students sitting junior certificate examination in 2001 for metalwork have not been returned; and the reason a person (details supplied) in County Leitrim has not had a project returned. [30772/01]
Every year, my Department receives for examination over 1.5 million scripts, practical pieces and other test products. It is not logistically feasible to facilitate the return of this quantity of examination material to candidates and, in the interests of fairness and equity, it is not possible to return a metalwork project to a particular candidate and retain material from other candidates who took metalwork, art, engineering and other examinations.
The optimum solution to the issues raised by the Deputy lies in realigning the assessment arrangements in subjects such as metalwork that generate artefacts. At present, the practical pieces in a number of subjects are examined in individual schools and consequently there are no logistical difficulties involved in returning the material. There are, however, short-term storage issues for the schools, which make it difficult to expand the number of subjects where the schools retain the material to include subjects like metalwork.
I have requested my officials to review the arrangements in consultation with the relevant interests, including school management bodies, in order to progress these issues on a consensus basis.
