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State Examinations

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 7 October 2020

Wednesday, 7 October 2020

Ceisteanna (115)

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

Ceist:

115. Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin asked the Minister for Education her plans to undertake a full review of the entire calculated grades process and publish the results. [28963/20]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

The decision to adopt a model of Calculated Grades by my Department was a result of COVID-19, which prevented the State from running the conventional Leaving Certificate Examinations. The purpose of this process was to allow as many students as possible to progress to employment, further education and training, or higher education.

On 30 September, I made a statement advising that two errors had been identified in the Calculated Grades process. These meant that incorrect grades were issued to some students when they received their results on 7 September.

The first error, in one out of 50,000 lines of code, was in relation to the processing of Junior Cycle data. The system was meant to draw on the core Junior Cycle subjects of English, Irish and Maths, and combine them with the students’ 2 best non-core subjects for all of the students in each class in each school. The coding error instead combined the core subjects with the students’ 2 weakest non-core subjects.

The error meant that, in some subjects, some students received Calculated Grades that were lower than they should have been, while some students received grades that were higher than they should have been.

In the course of a review which the Department then undertook, Departmental staff found a further error in the section of the code dealing with Junior Cycle results. The Junior Cycle subject Civil, Social and Political Education (CPSE) was meant to be disregarded as part of the model but was not. This second error, however, had a negligible impact on results.

I provided a further update on 03 October, announcing that improved Calculated Grades would issue to impacted students that day. This announcement was made following a review of essential aspects of the coding by Educational Testing Services, ETS, a non-profit organisation based in the United States.

ETS completed their review and provided it to my Department on 3 October. The review identified one further error, relating to how the code handled cases where students did not sit all three core subjects (Irish, English and Maths) at Junior Cycle level.

As a result of rectification of the three errors, a total of 6,100 students have received higher grades. This breaks down as follows:

5,408 students have received a higher grade, by one grade band, in one subject,

621 students have received a higher grade, by one grade band, in two subjects,

71 students have received a higher grade, by one grade band, in three or more subjects.

In addition to the students who received a lower grade than they should have in this year’s Leaving Certificate, some students received a higher grade than they should have. However, these students grades are not being amended and the students will not be affected.

ETS also identified an issue concerning how the algorithm used in the standardisation process treated students’ marks at the extreme ends of the marks scale (99% and over, 1% and below). However, ETS also stated that this had no material impact on the results and no student could receive a lower grade as a result of it.

Following correction of the errors the Department sent a corrected file of student results to the CAO. The CAO have identified that a little under 450 of the 6,100 students will be eligible to receive a new CAO offer. The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science will work with the CAO and the higher education institutions to see how these students can be facilitated to commence the course that they would, in other circumstances, have been offered in an earlier round. Any student who would have been entitled to a different offer in previous CAO rounds if they received the correct grade on 7 September will receive this offer or a deferred offer as part of the CAO Round 4 offers which are being released on 8 October 2020.

A copy of the report submitted by ETS is available on www.gov.ie/leavngcert .

On 03 October I also stated that I have asked that an independent comprehensive review of the operation of the Calculated Grades process take place when the process is complete. This review will include independent international expertise.

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