Dr. Joseph Ryan:

I thank Deputy Farrell for his questions. One of the points I made was around the work done by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. There is a disparity between the experience that students meet at second level and third level, and much could be done around that. That includes assessment. The first two enhancement themes for the national forum were transitions and assessment. There is very good work and learning done on that. I agree with Mr. Miley that when the advisory report comes out, a greater volume of continuous assessment would be likely in that context.

Turning to the question of educational disadvantage, one of the lessons we have seen from the Covid-19 experience is that a small amount of targeted support can make an enormous difference. We are not talking about volumes of money, but certainly broadband, counselling and availability of laptops became huge issues. There were stories of students driving to carparks to take up the Wi-Fi of the college.

On the question of confidence, what we are seeing are blip years with the leaving certificate. There is a matter of recalibrating. Certainly the work that was done on the regrading in 2017 deliberately brought in greater granularity to avoid precisely this type of thing. We will end up with cross-generational disparity but we can resume.