Mr. Neil McDonnell:

The point was that the manner in which the continuous assessment was marked for two successive years was ad hoc. It had highly negative consequences. On the other side, we need to move to a continuous assessment model. We look to achieve from that something that is objective and reliable. I do not come at this from an educational perspective and would not hazard to offer how that would be achieved. I think the other contributors will do that. From the moment a young person leaves school and goes to college, he or she will be subjected to continuous assessment. In the workplace, he or she will be subjected to continuous assessment. It is hard and sometimes brutal for that to happen and the sooner they get used to it, the better. I will summarise the point by stating the manner in which continuous assessment was executed in the leaving certificate years of 2020 and 2021 is not the way we can execute it in future.