Ms Mai Fanning:

I will take that question. Judging from the discussions that are taking place, the aim of the Department is that the leaving certificate examinations will be run in 2021. Our issue, however, is that the curriculum needs to be adjusted and that consideration needs to be given because the fifth-year students who are to go into sixth year in September have not had adequate time to cover the syllabus as it stands. Therefore, adjustments need to be made in the final year of their leaving certificate cycle. This also applies to students who are to proceed from second year to third year and who will be doing their junior cycle examinations in June 2021.

Those groups would have to have their curriculum examined. All would hope that Covid-19 would behave itself and the exams would be able to proceed as normal, to a degree, in 2021 with adjustments being made to the curriculum to address the lack of school time that has been experienced. It is like everything else; we need plans to be put in place and clear, considered and precise directions given to schools so that parents, schools and teachers alike all know where they are going with exam students.

Whether there is a mixture of blended learning or classroom time, they need to know that the curriculum can be covered effectively and confidently by parents, students and teachers who need to have confidence in the curriculum that will go forward for examination. This leads to a discussion on how we need to continue to examine and re-evaluate our education system, how we progress and whether we need to step up and move faster to the point where we remove the necessity for a terminal examination at the end of one's school life. That discussion is going on and will continue to go on, irrespective of whether Covid-19 has an impact on our education system in 2021 and 2022.