Batt O'Keeffe (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for raising this pertinent and important matter on the Adjournment. Each year leaving certificate students submit applications to the Central Applications Office for admission to courses of third level education. The principal object of the CAO is to process these applications for admission to courses.

The function of admission or rejection of applicants to institutions remains the strict preserve of the participating institutions. Neither the CAO nor the Department of Education and Science has any involvement in this process in line with the autonomy of the universities in this regard under the provisions of the Universities Act 1997.

Following the issuing of the results of the leaving certificate examination in August, students are offered places on college courses on the basis of the provisional grades achieved by them. The State Examinations Commission is responsible for the development, assessment, accreditation and certification of the second-level examinations, namely, the junior certificate and the leaving certificate. This is a non-departmental public body under the aegis of the Department of Education and Science. On 17 August 2005 the State Examinations Commission issued almost 375,000 provisional leaving certificate grades, marked by some 3,000 examiners, to in excess of 57,000 candidates.

The objective of the State Examinations Commission is to ensure the processing of results is as free from error as possible. Recognising the inevitable problems which can arise in a system of this size, a transparent, easily accessible and effective appeals process is available to all candidates unhappy with their results.

As a first step, candidates, on receipt of their results, are given the facility of viewing their marked scripts to see how the marking schemes were applied in their case. This year the viewing of marked scripts occurred on 2 and 3 September. The appeals system involves a full re-marking of papers by sometimes up to three examiners. The closing date for the receipt of appeal applications this year was 7 September. The results of the appeals issued on 12 October, some five weeks later, during which time the physical re-marking of the appeal scripts took place. During this limited timeframe, examination scripts had to be retrieved from schools, distributed to examiners, fully re-marked by appeal examiners, monitored in at least 20% of cases by appeal advisers and returned to the State Examinations Commission for results processing.

The relationship between the examinations system and entry to third level education is largely beyond the control of the State Examinations Commission. As I have said, offers of third level places are made by the CAO on the basis of the provisional results issued in August. There are good reasons for this. To delay offering places until the appeals process was completed would impact upon the start date for the academic year and as a result disadvantage the overwhelming majority of candidates whose provisional results are their final results.

The State Examinations Commission makes every effort to process the results of appeals as quickly as possible to facilitate the college entry process. This is balanced with the need to allow the appeal examiners sufficient time to carry out a thorough re-marking of candidates' work.

I understand that more than 80 students in total who applied to UCD this year received leaving certificate upgrades. More than 60 of these students have now been offered places on the basis of their upgraded results. An unprecedented number of students, 16 in total, were entitled to places in medicine at UCD this year as a consequence of leaving certificate upgrades. This has presented logistical and capacity issues for the university which cannot at this stage accommodate an additional 16 students on year one of the six-year medicine programme. In previous years it has been possible to accommodate additional students as the numbers have been much smaller, usually fewer than five.

UCD has now contacted all medicine upgrades to notify them that it is its intention that they will be offered a place in the first year of the accelerated five-year medicine programme in 2006. Most of the students are in the first year of a science related programme, so it is not envisaged that there will be any difficulty with this transition. A small number of students are not studying science related programmes and UCD is looking into mechanisms whereby their entry into the first year of the five-year programme may be facilitated.

In normal circumstances, all of these 16 students would have been entering a six-year programme this year. The alternative option of entry to the five-year programme next year ensures that they will not lose out in terms of the length of time to graduation. It is also the case that, on an exceptional basis, the eligibility of these students under the free fees scheme will not be affected as a result of the necessary transfer of programmes next year.

I thank the Deputy for providing this opportunity to clarify the position relating to the 16 upgraded applicants for medicine in UCD. It has been the normal practice of universities and institutes of technology to make every effort to accommodate students affected in this way. The Minister is satisfied that UCD has dealt sympathetically with the students involved having regard to the logistical difficulties they faced in these particular circumstances.

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