Ms Elaine Sheridan:

I am conscious of trying to reassure the Deputy in some sense. There is the broader review and the enactment which will be carried out, as happened with the introduction of all specifications. Some of the criticism, which the Deputy has mentioned, is that we only published one sample paper. One of the reasons we publish one sample paper is that the way the examination process works here in Ireland is that we do not pre-test material. They do that in other jurisdictions but we do not. We publish one sample paper and it is only one because we do not want too many examinations prepared and out in the system and maybe potentially being used as a teaching aid too early until we have had an opportunity to see how candidates respond to it.

From the sample paper, we took the feedback on board, as I mentioned earlier. Obviously now, we have had an opportunity to sample these papers with 29,540 candidates at higher level and another 24,000 at ordinary level. We have looked at the candidate responses, which is a key part, and these outcomes have been referred to by Ms Feeney as being positive. The report back from our examining teams was that candidates showed good levels of attainment. We will take on board what we observed last summer in respect to candidate responses and we are taking this on board also in respect of the design and the development of the paper for 2023.

There will be another examination paper out in the system and another marking scheme but we will have learned lessons if there was something to be taken from reviewing a very large range of the candidate responses across the grades. Again, it is a new examination with a new grading process. That will have fed into and continues to feed in to the paper preparation process for 2023.