Alan Kelly
Ceist:4. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet co-ordination committee last met. [25396/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 30 September 2020
Ceisteanna (4, 5)
Richard Boyd Barrett
Ceist:5. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet co-ordination committee last met. [27112/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraFreagraí ó Béal (17 píosaí cainte)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 4 and 5 together.
The Cabinet co-ordination committee meets in advance of Government meetings and last met on 28 September. The committee was established by the Government to review the activity of Cabinet committees, review the agenda for each week's Government meeting, discuss political priorities, and review the implementation of a specified element of the programme for Government. I am a member of the committee, as are the Tánaiste and the leader of the Green Party. The Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach, my chief of staff and the chiefs of staff of the Tánaiste and the leader of the Green Party also sit in on meetings. The committee has held six meetings to date.
I find it hard to speak about anything else today. The Taoiseach's Cabinet co-ordination committee is not doing a very good job when it comes to education. It is very difficult. The few Members who are left in this House can attest that their phones are hopping because of the 6,000 students affected by this absolute cock-up. It is extraordinary. This would bring down any other Government at any other time. The parents of one young lady named Aeva May were on the phone to me. She is resitting her leaving certificate because she missed out on what she really wanted to do very narrowly. Can the Taoiseach imagine the heartache, the absolute torture, that she and other students have gone through and are going through? What about all the parents who have paid for accommodation, or the students who are sitting at home working on college courses and wondering if they will stay in those courses? They will not know until later on today, and perhaps not even then. The 6,000 students who have been affected could be in different courses next week or the week after. This has never happened before. It is extraordinary. These students have gone through absolute hell and this is the cherry on top.
I do not know what we are going to do, but whatever is announced this evening had better be an extraordinary response. We cannot penalise students who have already been offered places. Some students who are repeating their leaving certificates may in fact be going to college. Parents are paying for accommodation which they may never need or use because their children could go to other third level institutions. Some people who have been enrolled in courses with restricted numbers may find they are no longer in those courses based on their results. The ramifications this will have throughout the country are humongous.
The Taoiseach said earlier that the outside company noticed a coding problem. The Government found out about this last week. Then there was a second error. Unless she has changed her mind, the Minister for Education and Skills will not be before the House this evening, although I encourage the Taoiseach to arrange it, even if her appearance is late in the evening, so she will not be able to tell us, so will the Taoiseach tell us if the second error was connected to the first or an altogether separate error? How many errors were there? Were there just two? Was the second error a magnification of the first or completely separate? Are there students who are impacted by both errors or a single error? How in the name of God did this happen? How did the Department not see this problem? Was it because this aspect was outsourced to this company and there were no checks on it? Will the Taoiseach tell us more about the second company the Government is bringing in to audit and check this? I agree with doing that, because the Department is obviously not capable of doing it itself.
This impacts on every single family network in the country. Since the Minister will not come before the House today, will the Taoiseach answer these questions for the people watching?
The leaving certificate class of 2020 have suffered unacceptably because of a series of mess-ups. It is quite unconscionable that they are going to suffer yet again as a consequence of a gigantic and inexplicable cock-up. After all they have gone through and suffered, we now have this situation of uncertainty which could have very severe implications for those already in third level courses, those who may have missed out, and those who got the wrong grades. It is truly extraordinary. The Minister must come into this House today to make a statement explaining what the hell went on and what she will do to rectify it.
The fact that outsourcing may have played a role in this is very telling. That speaks to the general lack of investment in education, which is at one of the lowest levels anywhere in the western world. These are the sorts of consequences that inevitably flow in difficult situations from a lack of investment in education. The class of 2020 are going to suffer as a consequence. We need explanations and we need to know what the Government is going to do to rectify the situation in which thousands of leaving certificate students now find themselves.
This really is the icing on the cake, the final cock-up for the class of 2020. It will have ramifications not just for that class, but for secondary school students in fifth and sixth year who were already anxious and went back to school at the height of a pandemic. They look to the State and the people in charge for some reassurance that they have some idea what they are doing, and here we find ourselves now. I am very concerned by the fact that the Taoiseach had this information last week and clearly it was kept from the Opposition. The Minister for Education and Skills did not brief anyone or indicate that there was a difficulty. Last week students were hoping to start their university and third level courses. Now all of this has been thrown into disarray for a second time. They were told at the last minute that they could not be on campus, that their teaching would be online and so on. Now we have this. To say this is a mess is very much an understatement. There are two parts to it: the fact that errors were made and the fact that they were discovered last week and the Government kept them to itself. None of this builds confidence. All of this causes further anxiety for students and families who have already been through the mill.
This is very worrying and upsetting for the students concerned. Of that there is no doubt. Covid-19 has had an extraordinarily negative impact on their educational year. In the first instance it resulted in the cancellation of the normal physical leaving certificate exam as we knew it.
In May, it was decided to proceed with a calculated grades process which in itself was a unique approach to dealing with the leaving certificate results and, critically, students' progression to further courses, particularly at third level. It was an enormous logistical exercise. Outside expertise was brought in in terms of the coding and all of that. It was examined internally by the Department and through a parallel process.
The key error appears to have been in the coding and has given rise to this issue primarily. Given the questions that have been asked, the Minister, Deputy Foley, will make a comprehensive presentation. That is why, when the Department first became aware of this, it was important to ascertain comprehensively what is involved so that when a public statement is made, as many questions as possible can be answered to reassure students, do the very best for them in terms of their situation and ensure mechanisms and portals are in place to enable individual students to access new grades as a result of results being upgraded. The nuts and bolts of the rectification of this and the presenting of this to students were uppermost in the priorities of the Minister and the Department, which is correct. When an error of this kind is discovered, it is important that its full implications are ascertained. In addition, the external independent audit was introduced. A separate company from the United States has been brought in to go through the entire system again. That has to be done.
How long will it take?
It is important that that be done. There is a set timeframe which the Minister will reveal. It is very, very regrettable. Believe me, it is not something about which I or anybody wanted to hear, least of all the students themselves. I know it will cause additional alarm and worry. The objective now is to reassure students in terms of the places they already have and, if necessary, in terms of creating additional places for students who may now qualify for third level courses. All of that has to be still worked out in terms of the CAO and the availability of places on various courses. I know the Minister is particularly sorry for students that this has occurred. The system was introduced to replace the physical leaving certificate. External expertise was brought in. I understand the code was developed externally and it was the first error identified by the external consultant, Polymetrika International Inc. The second error was discovered by the Department as it was going through the matter.
Is the second error connected to the first?
No. The Department will make a presentation on that this afternoon publicly and comprehensively, which is the correct thing to do. The Department has carried out a series of further checks. It has identified no further errors in the coding and it has checked that the coding-----
Will the Minister come before the House?
There is no issue with the Minister coming in. She will present to the Dáil.
Will she come to the House today?
That depends on logistics. My understanding is that a comprehensive statement will be made at 4 p.m., which is important.
Will the statement be delivered on the floor of the Dáil?
It will be made publicly such that students and everybody else can hear it. That is the intention of the Minister.
She should come to the House to answer questions.
Of course, the Minister will make herself available to come to the House and answer questions. The Department has contracted Educational Testing Service, which is a US-based non-profit organisation that specialises in educational measurement to review the essential aspects of the coding that underpinned the calculated grades system. The results data are now being rerun through the corrected model. The Minister will give a more comprehensive statement this afternoon regarding all of the issues the Deputies have raised. There is no point coming in with piecemeal, drip-feed details on this. A strong and comprehensive response is required to what is a very regrettable error that no one is happy about. I am not at all happy it happened. We are in a unique situation as a result of Covid-19 and its impact.