Ms Áine Lynch:

Building on what Mr. McWeeney says, the education for the teachers is essential but, also, we know that teachers know their students' work really well. If something comes through assessment which is an additional component that is being worked on and looks starkly different from all the other work that student has done, to Mr. McWeeney's point, it is caught very quickly, even without the additional tools. Teachers' knowledge of their students by the time they come to leaving cert is very well established. Yes, good education needs to be put in place for the additional assessment components, particularly around the AI element of it, but the equalities in the leaving certificate exist very strongly at the moment. Some children have an awful lot more leg-up when it comes to doing their leaving certificate than other students. The additional assessment component gives an opportunity to level that playing field that we must take to offer children who traditionally do not sit and do well in exams another opportunity to be able to show what they know. As that is such a great need, we need to take that step forward and work with it and continuously assess how it is working out and whether we need to put more safeguards in place. The additional assessment component is vital for some students who are struggling in our education system at present.