Professor Diarmuid Hegarty:

Regarding assessment by teachers, our problem there is subjectivity. The problem really is that one teacher may assess his or her own student differently from another teacher. That process is actually desirable. It is a process that happens in third level all the time. Essentially the solution is not to focus on the problem but to liberate the leaving certificate from the consequences of that assessment. Why do we have to be objective? Why must we have a precise base of allocation? It is because of what is at stake. There is too much at stake.

How do we deal with that? Dr. Ryan suggested we segregate the high-end programmes and have a different allocation mechanism for them.

We should also be looking at more creative options, and more of them, for people so that if a student loses out as a result of a subjective assessment by one teacher that favours another student and a negative assessment from another teacher, there are other options for that student. If we are seriously to take on board the points that have been made about experiential assessment, portfolios, project work and all of those things, we are going to be dealing with subjective assessment. That is going to be a reality. The important thing is to release the leaving certificate from the consequences of that.

The key point in a disadvantaged student's life is probably early stage education, both first and second level education. We need to look at the expenditure on that and assess its effectiveness. We need targets. I would like to see, for instance, a target of entry to third level for a certain number of students and I would like the expenditure to be measured against that. That sounds like a commercial perspective but there are limited resources and it is our responsibility to get the maximum benefit from those resources. The resources should be judged by their effectiveness. That is what I would say for disadvantaged students.

The problems created by Covid-19 are probably precursors of the kinds of problems we are going to face as we move to more subjective assessment. We can, through proper training and comparisons of results, bring more objectivity into individual teacher assessment. We are going to be dealing with those issues anyway. The challenge is getting it right and making sure those who are disappointed as a result have alternatives.