Dr. Harold Hislop:

The calculated grade system was put in place in 2020. It involved work that had to be done within the Department of Education because it could not be carried out by the State Examinations Commission, SEC, as it had not legal authority to carry out the work. An executive office, using the executive powers of the Minister was established within the Department. Staff from various parts of the Department and the SEC were seconded into the calculated grades executive office and were devoted to it. Work was contracted to a company, Polymetrika International, based in Canada. That company had helped in the initial stages with research and development of the ideas of how a calculated grades system could operate. We were in entirely uncharted territory. We had 60,000 students for whom we could not run a leaving certificate. There was a great deal of work to be done on how it would be possible to create grades that would be fair to those students and their ability over the time that they had studied.